Irritation, Hatred, and Something Else
by Backroads
Summary: Arranged marriages are common occurrences in Berk. Does that mean it's a good idea to pair up Ruffnut and Fishlegs?
1. Ruffnut is Furious

Dragons could be very dull. Fishlegs had not expected that. The entire idea about dragons was that they were to be exciting, interesting, dangerous. As thrilled as he was to have a dragon he could somewhat refer to as his own (the Gronkle seemed to like him best, anyway) he sometimes missed the days of enemy dragons. Yes, he knew everything there was to know about dragons, but that fascination had originated with the dragon danger. Now dragons had been grafted into the community, which was way cool. But it also revealed a side of dragons he had never before seen.

They sure liked to nap a lot.

Fishlegs sat above the arena next to Hiccup while half a dozen dragons occupied the dusty space, their tails curled around them. Sleeping. The afternoon was coming to a close and Fishlegs' carpentry duties were finished. They didn't always finish early, but today they did and he should have been enjoying a few precious minutes devoted to his own entertainment. But the most interesting things in the village had decided to all simultaneously nap.

Hiccup didn't seem to care. He had out a notebook and was lost in sketching the sleeping creatures. Which was incredibly cool. A great way to appreciate unconscious dragons. Except Fishlegs could not draw.

"Bored?" Hiccup finally asked.

"Yeah. Am I that obvious?"

"Oh, yeah. You keep sighing. It's really annoying."

"Well, I came over here kind of hoping to fly."

"Sorry." Hiccup hadn't looked up from his page once.

Fishlegs resisted a sigh again. But he was bored. He tended to talk when he was bored. "So my dad asked me something really random yesterday."

"What?"

"He asked me what I thought of Ruffnut."

Hiccup finally looked up, though still without interest. "Why?"

"I don't know."

"Well, what did you say?"

"I said she was kind of weird and scary but still pretty nice. I said she was all right."

"Huh." Hiccup went back to drawing. "Well, you could have been more flattering where she's concerned."

"And say what?"

"Well, she's coming over right now."

Fishlegs was too impressed to even look around. "How do you know?"

"Please. She's loud. I can hear her."

And with that Fishlegs turned around. Sure enough, Ruffnut was heading their way at a very fast pace, braids bouncing up and down. Fishlegs was used to seeing her expression at varying levels of deranged, but he had very rarely seen her truly angry. And she was angry now. Not annoyed, not frustrated. Angry.

"Uh, oh," he breathed.

Ruffnut was wielding a hammer. She stopped about ten feet away.

What was going on? He stood up. Maybe she was mad at Hiccup.

But her eyes flashed right at him as she flung the hammer.

He tried to bolt, but she had excellent aim and the hammer struck clean on the forearm. He collapsed just as Hiccup scrambled up, notebook falling to the ground.

"Yeah, you really should have been more flattering," Hiccup said.

"Why was I even asked that question in the first place?" He rubbed his arm. Already a bruise was forming. A painful bruise. He stared at Ruffnut in bewilderment. "What was that for?"

She didn't speak for a moment as she struggled to catch her breath. There were tears in her eyes. Ruffnut didn't cry. Well, she probably did cry, but he had never seen it before. "Fishlegs, I hate you." She then turned and ran.

Fishlegs picked up the hammer she had thrown with his good arm. "You forgot your hammer!" He had no idea why he had said that.

"Wow," said Hiccup slowly. "Are you sure that was all you said?"

* * *

Ruffnut did not slow down until the arena was far, far behind her. She had left her hammer. Her good hammer. At least she had gotten one good last throw out of it. Hooray for that. Stupid hammer hadn't even managed to kill Fishlegs and end this stupid mess. Nothing much could be done when the boy was dead. No plans could be made there.

She stopped to catch her breath. She was in the middle of the village, houses all around her. People, too. No one even bothered to look at her. Good, so she had perfected her reputation for being obnoxious to the point where no one would bat an eye at anything she did. But her eyes were burning with tears. No. She wasn't supposed to cry yet. Crying was not something she did in public. It wasn't as if she had not expected them. In fact, she had wanted to do nothing but cry for the past half-hour. Cry and kill Fishlegs. And she hadn't managed to kill him. Apparently she was about to cross one thing off the list, though.

Not in public. Tears would ruin that reputation. She had to get inside before they came. But she was not going home. No way. She was already sure Tuffnut was out looking for her. She approached a house and pounded on the door.

"Come in," a voice called.

Ruffnut pushed open the door. Normal house, table, hearth, random junk. And Astrid, sitting in the corner, spinning and looking a little too comfortable with the task.

"Yes, Ruff, I'm spinning," she said without looking up. "I will accept my duty to do so and let's face the fact that I am ten times better than you at it."

"You're doing great," Ruffnut muttered. Yes, Astrid of many talents. "Can we talk?"

Astrid glanced up, then jumped up, wool falling to the floor in a tangle. "Did someone die?"

"No, unfortunately." She collapsed into a chair at the table and the tears flowed.

"What do you mean?" Astrid's voice was near shrieking as she sat down next to her. "Ruff, you're crying. What happened?"

Ruff sniffed and attempted to wipe away the tears. "I tried to kill Fishlegs with a hammer."

Silence, followed by "Why?"

She took a deep breath. She had to get the story out to someone. "I walk into my house. My parents are there. Which is perfectly normal. Except for the fact they wanted to talk to me. Not Tuffnut, not me and Tuffnut. Me specifically. And they looked so happy, so thrilled." Right now she hated her parents. "And my mom said, 'Ruff, dear, you're turning seventeen in a couple of months.' Obviously. The woman gave birth to me and my weird brother, I'd assume she'd remember. Why she didn't mention Tuff was turning seventeen as well, I had no idea."

Astrid nodded.

It did feel good to get it out. "And then my dad says that he had been speaking to Fishlegs' father for a few days now."

Astrid gasped. "Oh no. No."

"Oh, yes. Idiots. You would think they'd know me better than that at this point in my life. But no, they don't care. They apparently hate me. But it's all arranged. We're getting married. Apparently Fishlegs' family has a lot of clout in this village that I knew nothing about and my parents want in on that."

"Oh, Freya," came Astrid's whisper.

"I'm really preferring Gefjon right now. Even though she failed me. Watch me make a sacrifice again to that hypocritical harlot. Wait. I never did. Great." Ruffnut pounded her head against the table. "So this is my punishment?"

"I am so sorry." Astrid took her hand and squeezed it. "No offense, but I have never actually pictured you married. I mean, there was that time a few months before dragon training where all these other girls younger than us got married off but while the weddings were really fun we didn't hear anything about it and I assumed…"

"You're not the one who's getting married off!"

For a long time neither of them spoke. Ruffnut just sobbed into the table. Finally, she came up for a breath. "And after they said all that I ran off and threw a hammer at Fishlegs."

"Do you think he knows yet?"

"Probably. I don't know. If he doesn't know he will soon."

"Will it make you feel better if I go punch him?"

Ruff nodded. "Will you?"

"No. Sorry. I think the hammer is quite enough."

* * *

_Notes: According to the research we found, Viking marriages, like most other European marriages at the time, had absolutely nothing to do with love. Couples were just kind of thrown together for the benefit of families or whatever. The couple itself really had no say in the matter._

_Vikings girls were usually married off between ages 12 and 16. We figured Ruff (and Astrid, for that matter) were approaching the old maid stage. One edit was to make Ruffnut a year older, placing this several years after the movie._

_Gefjon is a goddess partial to unmarried women._


	2. Fishlegs Finds Out

_Thanks for the comments and readings! Much love!_

* * *

Fishlegs' arm really hurt. The pain wasn't to the point where he was considering screaming and announcing it to the world in the manner of Tuffnut, but it did hurt and the bruise was growing. Thank goodness for that barbaric sense of pride that would keep him from admitting anything was wrong up to a point short of death. With his luck the arm was probably broken, but he had watched Tuff howl like a mere infant too times in the arena to want to ever admit to any pain. He was known for being bookish and nerdy, but at least he was also known for being tough. Still, he favored the arm a little as he headed home that evening, Ruffnut's hammer in his other hand.

Was it so much to want to know what that little attack had been about? And all he had done was mention the hammer. Yes, Ruffnut was completely insane—not in the whispering to invisible trolls and horses insane but the let's-go-dive-off-a-cliff-for-a-lark insane—but throwing a battle hammer and declaring her hatred for him was a little unusual for her. Mostly she just ignored him or gave him those disparaging looks whenever he spoke or made fun of him. All right, maybe there had been an "I hate you" somewhere in all the years of growing up together, but Fishlegs had never felt she had a particular grudge against him.

His house came into view, windows glowing out into the darkness. Hopefully he wouldn't be asked about the bruise.

He ransacked his brain for something he had done to warrant hatred. Nothing. He had always tried to be a nice guy and most people seemed to think he was pleasant enough.

Maybe he should just shove the entire incident in the category of "Girls are weird" and forget about it. He yawned and pushed open the door.

His father sat at the table, hands clasped together, smile wide. His father was a big man with an impressive Viking physique that Fishlegs had fortunately inherited. He was a carpenter, proudly responsible for most of the dwellings in the village. And he was not the sort of man to just be sitting at a table waiting for his son to come home.

"Fishlegs," he said with a little too much happiness.

"Oh, hi Dad." Fishlegs made an attempt to cover the bruised arm with the hammer-carrying hand, but his father didn't seem to be looking. "How was your day?"

"We're just about finished with that new house."

"I know. I was there." Through various circumstances involving mismatches in Fishlegs' interests and the village's available apprenticeships Fishlegs had quite happily spent the past eight years in the family business. "I finished the roof. I dropped a shingle on Greck's head."

His father blinked, then laughed. "Oh, yes. I had forgotten about that. Fine work today, son."

"Thanks." He wondered when he could leave. Not that he minded talking to his dad, but there seemed to be something very weird afoot.

"Well, I haven't told you everything about that house."

"Extra sturdy granite foundation?"

"It's for you." His grin grew even larger.

Another oddity of the day. Fishlegs set the hammer on the table. "What am I supposed to do with a house?"

His father laughed. "Well, I've been meaning it for you for some vague time in the future, but now plans have been made. I've arranged a marriage for you and that house will be your gift. You've seen it. It's a great little house and hopefully you won't have to worry about dragons destroying it. And you did do an excellent job on the roof."

With that declaration Fishlegs' mouth fell open and the random attack at the arena began to connect itself to a small theory. He had always liked to keep theories to himself until he was sure he was right… "What?"

"Son, I'm just saying the roof is great. Extremely sturdy with a slope that snow should just slide right off from—"

"You arranged a marriage for me?"

"Yes, that's why I said. Now back to the house—"

Fishlegs' heart began to pound as the little theory ricocheted in his brain in a desperate escape attempt mixed with an instinctive panic generated by this "M" word. "With who?"

"You'll be moving into the house with your bride, of course."

Fishlegs' rarely lost his temper, but he could feel it flaring. It was never good when he lost his temper. "Dad, I don't care about the house. Who am I supposed to be marrying?" Not that he wasn't already pretty sure he knew the answer to that question, but he had to be sure.

"That nice Thorston girl. Her parents and I made the agreement official yesterday."

So it was Ruffnut. Fishlegs closed his eyes, and his arm throbbed harder. Hence the "I hate you." She must have known. "After you asked me what I thought about her?"

"Before, actually." His father stood up and pushed in the chair, looking ready to end what he clearly felt was a chat that went very well.

"You agreed on this marriage and then asked me what I thought of Ruffnut?"

"I had to double check."

"Would it have mattered?"

"Probably not. I've already paid the arrha. Negotions are pretty much over."

Fishlegs gripped the table for support. He didn't like this theory turned fact. "And you're telling me now?"

"Yes. You're old enough and you're a fine worker. Might as well and the Thorstons are pleased with the arrangement."

Not their daughter.

"Well, once again, great work today, Fishlegs." His father headed toward the stairs. "Goodnight."

Fishlegs couldn't move until his father was upstairs. "Wow," he muttered.

The hammer still sat on the table. Such an innocent little tool capable of such annoyance and pain. He wanted to scream at it. But instead he picked it up. He had been planning on returning it in the morning, but maybe it would be better to do it know before anything really sunk in and he was paralyzed in fear.

Or maybe going back out would just be stupid.

But she had already declared her hatred and maybe she thought he had already known. That definitely had to be cleared up.

The night was unnaturally warm. Or so it seemed to him. Maybe it was just the sweat of terror. He passed the hammer from arm to arm, wincing every time it entered the hand of the bruised arm. It was a good weight, too light for him but impressive for a girl. He would be smart when returning it and would not hand it back until he had her word she would not throw it back at him. But Ruffnut had always seemed pretty protective of her positions so hopefully would take it back and then just glare at him. He could handle that. That would be perfect, in fact.

He was not even near her house when familiar arguing broke through the night and drove a knife of terror into his heart.

"Why should you even care where I go?" Ruff's voice was as annoyed and grating as usual, but with a dash of something else in it as well.

"I don't care where you go," snapped Tuffnut's reply. "I could care less where you go. Mom and Dad care where you go."

"Oh, please. You're a dependent moron who can't stand to be away from me!"

"I pray everyday to be separated from you and your big fat mouth!"

"Why don't I just tell Astrid the truth and that the reason you came over to drag me away was because you just had to see her."

Moonlight glinted off pale blonde hair as the twins came into view twisted together in the usual sight of half-shoving, half-dragging. Tuffnut was in charge of the dragging and while Ruffnut didn't entirely fight it she had taken charge of shoving her brother every few seconds.

"Like I'd go after someone else's girlfriend."

"You would, you cad. Because you can't get your own. Let go of me." She ripped her arm from his grasp and slugged him in the face.

Tuffnut cried out, but just as quickly grabbed her arm back and pressed it to his side. "You are being such a baby right now, Ruff."

"You're the baby. Don't make me punch you again. Or maybe I'll—" She stopped.

Fishlegs hadn't realized he had made any noise. He had stopped when he had heard them coming and fell against his will into their usual drama—he had always found it entertaining.

Ruff's eyes narrowed. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, boy," Tuffnut muttered.

"You forgot your hammer," Fishlegs replied, voice shaking. "You know. The one you threw at me."

"Oh, yeah. The one that was supposed to hit your ugly head. Yeah, I'll be happy to take that right back." She darted forward, but Tuffnut grabbed her shoulder.

"Like you're even capable of taking down Fishlegs. I'll get the stupid hammer." He approached Fishlegs, fighting Ruffnut the entire time.

"I'm giving it to Tuff," Fishlegs' said. The process was difficult with Ruff climbing over her brother's shoulders but Fishlegs did manage to get the hammer into Tuffnut's hand. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it," Tuff muttered as he held the hammer out of Ruffnut's reach. "Word of advice. Probably not safe to go anywhere near her right now."

"Got that right, moron." Ruffnut made another grab for the hammer. "He even asked why I threw the hammer at him. All innocent in ruining my life."

"I just barely found out," Fishlegs defended as he took a few steps back.

"Ain't that great?" Her eyes flashed in the dim light, about ready to set her sarcasm on fire. "You just found out."

Tuffnut gave a scream as Ruffnut kicked him in the knee and snatched the hammer. Her eyes lit up as she swung the hammer over her shoulders. "Isn't it great to know you won't feel safe the rest of your life?" she continued.

Fishlegs closed his eyes for the next blow, but Ruffnut screamed before it could happen. He opened his eyes to see her pinned to the ground by Tuffnut, who peeled the hammer from her and chucked it into the darkness.

"Hey!" she shrieked.

"I had nothing to do with it," Fishlegs said. He wasn't sure it would mean anything to her, but it seemed they were all well past him laughing in the background while they fought or made fun of someone. Saying something was a step up, at least a change of pace. "I swear. I was just told. None of it was my idea."

She took a deep breath and paused in her struggle against Tuffnut. Her gaze was murderous. "And it was my idea?"

The pause was long enough. Tuffnut took the opportunity to throw Ruffnut over his shoulder. He sent Fishlegs a smile that looked like more like a cringe in the faint light—probably was. "Goodnight. Sorry. I'll take her home." He walked quickly off, his sister beating and kicking him.

Fishlegs released his breath. He hadn't realized he had been holding it. At least he hadn't been physically attacked again. He would have to thank Tuffnut for that. He turned back to his house, just in time to hear the thump and cry of Tuffnut being knocked to the ground.

Fishlegs decided to run.

* * *

_arrha: "down payment" of bridal price._


	3. Swords

Days passed before Ruffnut braved going outside. Which was odd for her. The result of being raised by parents who saw no real point in bringing boy and girl children up in extremely different ways was that she was very outdoorsy, to say the least. She was meant to be climbing trees and breaking her arm on rocks. She was not meant to be cooped up inside. But now that she was the village's next little bride going outside meant only being congratulated on her upcoming new life.

So, to avoid yelling at all the nice well-wishers and bringing shame upon her family, she only went outside when necessary. Which meant avoiding chores became all the more difficult.

Boys got all the good chores. Tuff got to work in the fields and down at the dock. All the fresh air, dirt, and stinky fish anyone could want. Did girls get to do any of that? Sure, she knew perfectly well how to plow a field and it was even expected she should know how to do so, but apparently all of her official work had to be indoors. Cooking and weaving and sewing and spinning and all the other stuff she was terrible at. She missed dragon training. Dragon training had gotten her out of that because everyone should know how to kill a dragon.

Stupid tame dragons.

Now she had trapped herself in a place where there was no way to avoid them. The only things that kept her sane were the facts that no one could mention the marriage and she could not accidentally bump into Fishlegs. Apparently killing him wasn't going to work. Yet.

She screamed in frustration as the yarn came off the spindle in pretty much the same woolly mess as it had entered and banged the stupid contraction against her knee. "Mom, it's not working!"

Her mother, Stormbite, who acted as the village midwife, did not even bother to glance up from the herbs she was packing into jars at the table. "Maybe it will eventually, now that I've got you actually inside. Try again and think about what yarn looks like."

Ruff stared at the basket of wool at her feet and despised it and the whole sheep-shearing season. It was a rather large basket. She grabbed up a handful and strung out pieces in her hand. It had been washed and rewashed and it still smelled like sheep. With a hmph she hoped her mother heard she twisted in onto the spindle shaft and sent it spinning.

"Just keep practicing," her mother practically sang. "Gods know you should be able to do this."

Ruff decided it was probably best not to mention that her mother should have been more consistent in teaching it. But not when her mother was dealing out plants that could easily be used as poison.

When the shaft was full, she pulled off the yarn. Lumpy. As usual. Apparently a week of doing little more than spinning hadn't improved her past the same talent of the past ten years. "It looks like something the sheep threw up, Mom."

"Try again."

Curse her mother and her perfect patience.

Ruff threw down the spindle and the lousy yarn. She really wanted to burn it.

"Astrid can do it just fine."

"That's because Astrid is perfect. She fights perfectly, she spins perfectly. She's perfect."

"I thought she was your friend."

"Good thing, too, or I'd hate her. Marry her off." Like she would wish that upon Astrid. Despite the fact that with any luck she could get married off to Hiccup and they could live happily ever after. Astrid would actually make sense getting married.

The yarn was actually unraveling itself. Just her luck. Ruff picked it up and tried to twist it back together.

Her mother finished the last jar and stood up. Ruff and Tuff had inherited their wiry builds from her, but at least she was pretty. Stormbite's sharp features still caught men's attention and her brown hair, when she let it down at night, reached the floor. "You really don't have to do that now. Get out of the house, if you want. I'm just dropping these off at Olivia's and then checking to see—"

"Like I actually want to be involved in your job." Ruff had once gone to help with a birth. Once. She was never going to go again, nor was she ever going to go along on anything leading up to a birth.

"Then go get water."

"All the women go to the spring. They'll pat my head and coo over me and I'll wind up insulting them. Again."

Her mother began packing the jars into a basket. "You're going to have to own it sometime. Like in the next two weeks."

"Less than that." Ruff closed her eyes. The wedding was too close.

The water jug was shoved into her hands, and she opened her eyes. Her mother stood above her, glaring down. "Water. Now."

Her mother was the one person she could not drive nuts. Stormbite instead took that role. Then everyone wondered where her attitude problem came from. No one would ever guess the nice midwife. Ruff took the jug with a sigh and stood up. "I'm going to trip somebody and it will be your fault."

"Trip someone I don't like, then. That Kolla woman who talks in that squeaky voice and ends every sentence with "all right?". Trip her, if it makes you happy and gets you out of this mess you're in."

"You and Dad are the ones who put me in this mess."

Her mother began humming, which meant she was not going to talk about it again and nothing in the world would make her.

Ruff sighed and stomped to the door.

"And Ruff?"

"Anyone else you want me to trip?"

"Stop by the blacksmith shop. That sword should have been started days ago. Tell him your father will work out the payment later."

Ruff slammed the door.

The sun was way too bright. She had been inside way too long. Her eyes were just about burning in their sockets.

The blacksmith was empty of any customers. Just Gobber and Hiccup, chatting idly as the worked on what appeared to be chains. Ruff had never liked the forge. It was too hot and she could taste metal in the air. She stood in the entrance until Gobber noticed her. Then he gave her that patronizing smile like he was happy for her. Proud of her.

"Ruffnut!" he exclaimed, setting down the still-red links. "Haven't seen you around."

He had better not mention the marriage.

"Are you excited yet?"

She barely choked back a curse, but she knew better than to talk back to Gobber. At least Hiccup was respectfully staring at her with some level of terror. "I'm supposed to get a—"

"—Sword," Gobber finished. "For the ceremony. I know. I had Hiccup start on the blade two days ago. It's his first."

Hiccup did not look proud. He just continued to stare at her.

Ruff glared at him. "What are you looking at?"

"Nothing."

She shook her head. Hero or not, Hiccup was still weird. Cute, but weird. Except she apparently wasn't allowed to think anyone was cute anymore. "My dad will be by—"

Gobber shook his head and held up his hand. "No, no. You were a student. Consider it a gift."

"Thanks, that's very kind of you," Ruff replied without feeling particularly thankful. It was a sweet gesture, but she didn't want the stupid sword or the stupid wedding.

"You're very welcome." He winked. "So you never answered my question. Are you excited?"

Ruff studied the space closer. Hiccup still had that weird look on his face. She groaned as she put everything together. "He's here, isn't he?"

Gobber rolled his eyes while Hiccup choked out a "Who's here?"

"Fishlegs. You all heard me coming so he jumped behind something and you two acted like you didn't see me at all!"

"Why would we do that?" Hiccup asked.

Gobber just laughed.

"Fishlegs!" Ruff shrieked.

A blonde head peaked up over a pile of shields.

She put her stony stare on Fishlegs. "Coward," she spat. She wished she had come by after the spring so she could have dumped water on him.

Instead she marched back outside.

The spring was empty. She set the jug down and collapsed next to it. She liked the spring. She would never admit it to anyone, but it was pretty. Idealistic, even, which was saying something for what was merely the town's water supply. It was half- hidden in the pines but with enough of a rocky cave over it to prevent most pine needle problems. She dipped her hands into the water and splashed it over her face.

Unbelievable. She was barely outside for five minutes and she was already running into her future husband. Did the gods not understand she didn't want to look at him? What was he doing in there, anyway? Probably complaining about her. And then that nasty little trick of trying to get her to talk. Gobber was just evil. Did he think she was enjoying this?

The same things that had flowed through her mind over and over since her parents had sprung the news began another circuit. She should have seen it coming. She was nearly sixteen. The latter end of the usual marrying age. But she didn't want to do it. She had no desire to be responsible for a household. She had no desire to be a wife. Did she act like someone who would be a good wife? Hardly, and she was proud of that. Life had been good up until that announcement. Why couldn't it just continue?

Her eyes burned. No, no. She was done crying. She grabbed the jug and plunged it into the water.

"Ruffnut!" came a squeaky female voice behind her. "My dear, come over here and let me congratulate you, all right?"

Kolla. She wondered if her mother had been serious about tripping her.

* * *

_Swords were a big part of the wedding ceremony. More on that when when we hit the actual wedding! *evil cackles*_


	4. More Swords

"You've got to be kidding me," said Fishlegs.

"It's tradition," one of his cousins said.

"It's not tradition. It's risking the wrath of the dead."

"No, it's a tradition," his father assured. "Albeit one that is rarely done. This land really isn't meant for barrows."

But there were still the occasional barrows, and Fishlegs now found himself far from the village in a little clearing in the trees staring at one particular barrow. It belonged to his great-grandfather. And all the men in his family stood around, expecting…

"None of you ever did this!" Fishlegs protested. He could not remove his eyes from the barrow.

"I did!" his father said proudly.

"There were other swords," said another cousin. "You're the second youngest of the clan, ancestral swords are hard to come by when you come in late in the generation. This is all that's left. Unless you want someone longer dead."

"I'm not going in there." Fishlegs had always considered himself reasonably brave. Not the bravest in the village, but there were bigger cowards. "I am not going into a barrow."

"The wedding is tomorrow."

As if he needed reminding. He had been sick for the past three weeks. He hadn't seen Ruffnut since that day in the blacksmith shop, but that hadn't made things any easier. Tuffnut had approached him a few times, as kind and as demure as Tuffnut could possibly be, claiming peace and that his sister's fury was "nothing personal". Fishlegs didn't care. "Do we really need the sword?"

"It's tradition!" everyone said in unison.

Great. Just great. He was surrounded by burly Vikings all bigger than he was, which was saying something, Vikings who expected him to climb into his ancestor's grave for a sword for a wedding to a crazy girl. Maybe he should go in there, plunge the sword into his own heart, and end it right there. That would solve all problems.

He took a deep breath.

"Chicken!" a cousin called out.

"Chicken" was an insult known to bring out his Berserk tendencies. They were just asking for trouble. Still, he released the breath and took another one. Calm down. He had to calm down. Suicide or killing family members in a frenzy were not the right answers. It was just a marriage to a crazy girl. There were worse girls he could be marrying. Maybe. He couldn't think of any off the top of his head. But there were probably girls who would do worse things than insult him or try to kill him. Somewhere in the village.

The rock that blocked the single non-plundering entrance into the barrow had already been moved. The smell drifting from the tunnel was positively awful. What stupid tradition was this? Couldn't he just get a sword from someone else in the village? Why did the girls get to have theirs made fresh?

"Doesn't Great-Grandpa need the sword?" he asked in a final and desperate plea.

"Fishlegs, go," said his father.

The next breath he held against the smell. Then, in a moment of insanity left over from the near-Berserk, he entered the barrow.

Even holding his breath the stench was overwhelming. And the sight was worse. He had been given one candle, but the barrow was small and the light was plenty. The sword had to be obvious. Where would a sword be? The light bounced from the earthen walls, revealing every other weapon under the sun but no sword…

Then he saw it. He wished he hadn't seen it. It was in the hand of the rotting skeleton that had once been his great-grandfather. Fishlegs considered the fact that he should probably be feeling some sort of veneration, but he just wanted to get out of there.

"Sorry," he muttered, trying to take the hilt without touching the skeletal hand. It was impossible. And speaking made him lose his breath. The smell hit him so hard he nearly passed out. The finger bones were cold as he ripped the sword from the hand. Should he say something about how he needed it to continue the bloodline or whatever? No, he needed air. If he were cursed, he was cursed and that was all there was to it. He didn't care.

He rushed out of the barrow to the mad roar of his family. He considered holding up the sword as a trophy, but he was too busy gasping in the clean air and trying to erase the memory of touching a dead body. No one seemed to notice the lack of championship. They all slugged his shoulder and clapped him on the back. They had better be proud of them. None of them had ever had to do anything that stupid.

The sword was a mess. Rust had set in. Apparently it had not been prepared before being placed in the barrow. And it smelled like the place.

Wouldn't Ruffnut just be thrilled?

* * *

Fishlegs spent the rest of the day trying to avoid everyone. Which was difficult. Snotlout had heard about the barrow incident and instead of being duly impressed like everyone else he had taken to leaping out from behind things screaming like a draugr and then laughing about it as if it were the funniest thing in the world. Short of berserking, however, Fishlegs didn't give the best reactions and all it took was a "I hope you're next!" to shut him up.

The day was passing way too quickly. As fast as the past three weeks. It was completely insane.

He pushed open the door of the new house, not knowing what had brought him there. The very sight of the house had filled him with terror ever since he discovered its true purpose. Oh, it was well-built and hopefully no dragon would burn it the ground. Could he convince his Gronckle to do that? No, Fishlegs could never intentionally destroy a building. It was a small house, a single room. Pieces of Ruffnut's dowry had already been moved in by her father. A loom, even though everyone knew she couldn't weave. The bed had been pushed into the far corner. One bed and all that meant. Possibly the best thing about the situation. Except it was Ruff.

He needed to stop that. He wasn't being fair. He had known Ruff all his life. They had gotten along just fine up to this point. And at this point they barely saw each other. Maybe she had calmed down. She had, after all, only said she hated him once. That was pretty good, all things considered. They had gotten along before, they could do it again.

Everyone else was forced to when they were married.

Though she had yelled at him two weeks before in the blacksmith shop. That had been a disaster. Maybe he shouldn't have been in there, complaining about Ruff. Why had he? He wasn't a complainer. He thought he had handled the situation very well. What had possessed him to tell Hiccup, of all people, everything that drove him crazy about Ruff? She was whiney, she was rude, she couldn't do anything, she was insane… He had been in an uncharacteristically bad mood that day. Bad manners, yes. He could admit that. Though Gobber had found it all very funny, for some reason.

Well, he was going to stop the complaining and be a man about this.

It was nice house. He had helped with it. Odin's bloody one eye, he had been tricked into helping with it. But it was new and smelled fresh. He had always liked the fresh wood smell.

The sun had already set when he stepped back outside. The house had been built on the edge of the village, close to the sea. Now they could always wake up to the smell of fish. Great planning there. Still, otherwise a nice house. He stared outwards into the water.

He couldn't believe the sun had set. Now it was just one night.

Something moved in the field next to the house. He turned to see a blonde figure trudging through the grass. Someone he hadn't seen for nearly two weeks.

Ruffnut, heading down the hill.

She stopped.

He needed stop staring at her. She was way too good at sensing stares, and now she was returning the stare with a lot more ferocity.

She really was crazy.

"Are you running away?" he asked.

"Why in Hel's name would I be running away?" she snapped back. "Do I look like I'm running away? We're on an island, how far could I get were I to run away?"

Why did she have to be so… beastly? "They locked up that Zippleback, didn't they?"

She hesitated. "No one trusts me! I'm not a coward. I'm a Viking!"

Tuff had said something about her constantly making sacrifices. "Are you getting an offering for Gefjon?" Apparently that was a goddess very popular with Ruff as of late, according to the word.

Another hesitation. "I'm going home."

The house was suddenly awkwardly larger as she stared at it in disgust.

"Are you going to keep being a brat about this?" he heard himself say as she turned back up the hill. Maybe not the best thing to say to her, but it was true.

She stopped. "I'm not being a brat about this, idiot. So what if Gefjon hates me. I'm not running away, I'm not arguing, and I'll see you tomorrow. And we'll do this and then whatever. So don't you dare call me a brat!"

He took an instinctive step back. "Sorry."

Should he mention the death sword? Would that interest her? Nah, she'd find out soon enough.

She stomped back up the hill to her family's house.

* * *

_draugr: animated corpse, though more ghost-like than zombie-like_

_So while the bridal sword is to be brand-new, the groom's sword is not and comes from an ancestor. There are various ways of getting this sword. We chose, for our own amusement, to have Fishlegs get this sword in the most basic and pure form we could find: grave-robbing! Variations upon this theme included more mild processes: still using the barrow, but having a living relative pretending to be the dead guy giving the sword, acting out the barrow process somewhere else entirely, or merely getting a sword from someone still alive. Though the Viking Answer Lady (who is quickly becoming our first source of research, just type the name into your browser) says she couldn't find any actual incidents of grave-robbing mentioned, we did it any way._


	5. A Viking Wedding

Friday. Ruff's eyes flew open in the standard action of awaking a little too fresh and ready for the day. No remaining lethargy or drowsiness begging for the covers to be pulled back over her head. Just the wide-wake alertness. Body was awake, body was ready, and lying in bed was not going to cut it. Despite the fact it was the last time she was going to be in that bed. Well, she wasn't going to bother with sentiment. She pushed the covers away, stood up, and stretched, all the while thinking in vague fascination how it was already Friday. Her wedding day.

Great.

She made her way to the window. So far the sky was overcast—not uncommon for Berk mornings, especially since the sun was barely up. Maybe it would stay that way to match her dreary mood. Sunshine would only be obnoxious today.

A knock came at the door. "Sweetie, are you up?"

Ruff sighed and turned from the window. "Yes, Daddy!"

"Your mother wants to know if you're still in bed."

For crying out loud, it was earlier than she usually awoke. She crossed the room and opened the door. "I'm awake. I'm here. Let's get this over with."

Her father, Tuffnut Sr., laughed. He was opposite in build of his wife and children, stocky, big, bear-like. For some reason Ruff had always felt it made him all the more father-ish. He scooped her up in a hug that she did not resist. She had managed to make herself the wildest and most obnoxious female in the village, but she was still a daddy's girl. "You look beautiful."

"No, I don't."

With another laugh he set her down.

She stared up at him, suddenly once more desperate. "Daddy, please don't make me do this."

The same plea her parents kept insisting was identical to what every other bride begged. And once more he did not take it seriously. "Oh, you'll be fine."

"Ruffnut!" Stormbite called from the back room.

In accordance with the fact that she no longer had any control over her life, Ruff slowly made her way to the back room. It was little more than a lean-to, but it contained a tub and Stormbite insisted it was necessary though no one else in the village bothered with so many extra rooms. But the little lean-to sure was crowded.

Ruff entered and shut the door behind her. It seemed half the married women of Berk were there. Well, there really were only half a dozen, but it might as well have been the higher number. "Mom, what's going on?"

Her mother sat next to the steaming tub, a brush in her hand and a big grin on her face. "Your bath, obviously."

"Yes, but why is everyone here?" They all looked as excited as her mother.

"Advice," said her grandmother. The other five women, who were not even related to her, nodded and murmured in agreement. Okay, she could handle her grandmother, but not the others. And she didn't want any advice.

Ruff rolled her eyes. "You want me to take a bath in front of all these people?"

"Just undress and get in."

"What?"

"Ruff, now. You've bathed in front of other people before."

"Yes, my friends my own age! No offense, Grandma." Still, she began pulling off her shirt. She didn't really care anymore. "The rest of you, really?"

Stormbite took Ruff's clothes and carefully folded them as Ruff slipped into the tub. The water had quite recently come off the hearth. She took the bar of soap her mother offered and began scrubbing, all the while trying to ignore the comments of the women as they ritually harassed her with their phrases.

"You'll need to keep the house clean. A mess will bring bad luck!"

"You can only use the headache excuse so often!"

"Stay ahead on the baking. Men always expect food to be ready."

"Always look your best!"

"You will be expected to always give your best in bed and often!"

"And remember, size does matter. Not that you'll have much of a choice. Though I think you'll be lucky."

"Aim for at least five minutes!"

Where did they come up with these? Were they all just assigned to come over with random phrases she did not want to hear?

Still, the advice wasn't all bad. Someone did throw in the incredibly true tidbit of "Men are idiots. Always remember you're superior, they're inferior, and balance will be there."

Skin clean, she began to assist her mother with unbraiding her hair. Anything to not focus on the madness being spouted. Some of it was getting downright dirty. Soon her blonde hair spilled across the surface of the water. Taking out the monkey's fist knots she always tied at the end of her braids added a good six inches of length. Stormbite rubbed soap into it. A lot of soap.

"Just think, you'll soon be wearing your hair up!" she said proudly.

Ruff just wanted the soap out of her eyes. Who cared about hair?

And just when it seemed she would go blind, a bucket of water was dumped over her. She gasped and choked and pushed the hair from her face. The water had been freezing and… scented. "What was in that water?"

Her mother laughed. "Why do you need to do know?"

"Why am I being forced to smell good?"

"Because you should smell good."

"What was in the water?"

Another laugh, and this time the other women joined in.

"A few flowers," Stormbite began thoughtfully. "Some other herbs. Mistletoe, cardamom…."

Wonderful. She had just been doused in aphrodisiacs.

* * *

The day was dismal. There was no getting around that no matter how much Fishlegs wanted to avoid it as a sign. The sun hid its face behind the sweeping cloud barrier that seemed to be debating the option of raining. A small-but-chill breeze had picked up. All that was now needed was a great clap of thunder to prove that Thor himself disproved of the marriage, but Fishlegs seemed to be the only one aware.

The villagers had gathered in a field that flattened near the shore and they seemed to be the only ones having any sort of good time while Fishlegs merely stood there next to the stone alter considering what people would do if he just started digging a hole into the ground.

His dad had spent the morning assuring him a marriage was no big deal, that everyone did it. That was coming from a man who had been married scarcely a year before his wife died. Like he knew anything about marriage. Did he have any idea what he had just thrown his son into? Marriage to the crazy girl!

He felt the beginning signs of hyperventilation. Which meant he was panicking. Or getting upset. It would not be a good thing to berserk at a wedding, especially his own. Maybe Ruffnut had been running away the night before. And he had stopped her. He shouldn't have said anything and then this wouldn't be happening to him right now. He vainly attempted to control his breath and gripped the alter for support. Was that okay? Would that get him struck by lightning?

Look at all the nice guests milling about, he instructed himself. All the nice people he had known his entire life. They were here, they had a day off, they wanted to enjoy themselves. And for some bizarre reason they were happy for him! They were happy for him and he just wanted to puke all over the alter.

Except Gothi the Elder was already there, smiling and humming to herself as she pulled a bowl from her bag and set it on the alter. And there was a goat. Why was there a goat?

He looked over the crowd in terror, desperate for someone who would plead his case. Hiccup. Hiccup was always nice, easy to talk to. He had demonstrated some sympathy over Fishlegs' plight. But now… Hiccup had Astrid on his arm, talking and laughing and being all around disgusting.

Maybe the clouds would make up their mind and it would rain. Rain hard and distract everyone and he could get out of here.

Or maybe he could just run while everyone else was distracted. Yeah, that would work. Except he found he couldn't move. The most he could do was fiddle with the sword. The death sword that despite having been cleaned smelled like a rotting corpse. Maybe he could berserk. Take the sword, kill everyone, escape. That would be pretty cool.

Except, before he could return to hyperventilating into a berserk rage, the crowd quieted.

Tuffnut came first, bearing a sword. Nice. Shiny. New. Not smelling of death. Ruffnut followed, her father at her side.

Fishlegs' mouth dropped. She looked… ready to kill someone with the bundle of flowers she held. He found himself stepping backwards. But she was wearing a dress. Nothing fancy, but he had only seen her before in more practical skirts. Her hair was loose and fell in slight waves down to her knees.

"Good luck," muttered Tuffnut as he stopped near the alter. For the first time since the marriage had been announced Tuff looked disgusted to see him, and Tuffnut was as good at glaring as his sister.

Who, speak of the devil, was now standing only a foot from Fishlegs. He couldn't help but imagine there was a dagger buried somewhere in the flowers.

"You look nice," he whispered for lack of anything else to do.

Tuff's grip tightened on the sword hilt. Ruff said nothing. Yes, there definitely had to be some hidden weapon with the flowers.

Gothi began talking. Fishlegs didn't hear a word she said. He could only stare at Ruff in terror.

"Stop staring at me!" she finally hissed.

With great difficulty he turned his gaze to the ground.

"… that the blessings of Thor might be invoked with this goat..." Gothi was saying.

"Please don't sacrifice at my wedding," Ruff said under her breath.

"…to be held as holy to Thor for this day!"

Ruff sighed in relief.

Then Gothi dipped a fir branch into the bowl and began flicking water everywhere. Fishlegs began to suspect the old woman was bind. "May the blessings of the gods be upon you!"

Solemn silence everywhere.

"Get on with it!" Ruff's voice was barely above a whisper but as grating as ever.

"Oh, right." He handed her the sword. How could metal smell so bad?

Her nose wrinkled as she accepted it, flowers brought to one hand. "Where did you get this thing?"

"In a grave."

Her eyes widened, and she quickly dropped the sword into Tuff's hands and snatched the new one. "Here."

Fishlegs took the sword, pulled out the ring that had been sweating in his fist for the past two hours, placed it on the hilt, and held the hilt back toward her. There was a small pause, but she took the ring and placed his back on the hilt. All right, rings exchanged. That was done.

He grabbed the hilt again, trying to keep his hand as far from hers as possible. She had large hands, too, and the hilt was rather short. Vows. Now he was supposed to say vows. Something he had been forced to memorize. He opened his mouth and started reciting them.

He had absolutely no idea what he was saying.

* * *

Vows spoken, something about promising to be a good little wife, Ruff tore her hand away from the stupid sword. This whole thing was surreal. Maybe she had never awoken that morning. Maybe this was all a weird, weird dream. But no, there was the ring on her finger and the flowers in her hand.

Finally, a boisterous voice bellowed "Last one to Meade Hall serves!" And there was nothing a crazy group of Vikings loved more than a challenge. Hooray for pandemonium. The race to the hall had always been the best part of all the other weddings she had attended. The weddings that weren't hers.

At least Fishlegs had vanished.

She dropped the flowers and turned to Tuffnut. "One more race. I can so beat you."

He dropped the grave sword, smile bursting onto his face. "You're on!"

And that was that. Before he could move she threw her arms around his neck.

He awkwardly patted her back. "Um, I thought we were going to race?"

She nodded, but didn't release him, only squeezed tighter.

"Hey," he said gently, finally giving her a real hug. "It's fine. You look great. You're going to be all right. It's Fishlegs. He's nice." The same things he had been telling her for weeks.

She didn't say anything for a full minute. She needed a full minute. And when it was over, she took a deep breath and pushed herself away. "Now we can race."

"Let's go." He took off.

She felt herself smile. She picked up the edge of her skirt and sprinted after him.

Meade Hall was a madhouse when they arrived. Probably the last people there. Well, Ruff definitely was. She had just discovered she couldn't run in a dress. She now hated dresses.

Fishlegs stood at the entrance, clutching her nice new sword. Why did it have to given to him? Why did Fishlegs have to be around?

She stopped at the door and glared at him. "I don't need your help going through a door."

"But it's bad luck," he protested, blocking one door with the sword blade.

"I'm not going to fall, idiot." Though with her agility in a dress, who knew?

"I'll go first," he said, opening the door.

"No, I will!"

"But that's not how it works! I'm supposed to go first and help you through and-"

"I don't care."

But he was already through.

She rolled her eyes. "Fine. Protect me." She offered him her hand and stepped through the door she had stepped through a million times. But Fishlegs grabbed her hand a little too tightly when she hadn't expected him to actually grab her hand. Then her dress caught around her foot. She crashed into Fishlegs and they both went tumbling over the threshold.

The once-noisy hall went silent, save for a tiny murmur about a now-cursed marriage.

"Great," Ruff muttered. "Did everyone have to see that?" She climbed to her feet, shoving Fishlegs down as she did so.

It might as well have been any other noisy feast in Berk. Same food, same yelling, same drunken brawls started by the same people who seemed to have no other purpose aside from starting drunken brawls. So it was easy to tune out. Ruff stared at her dish and poked disgustedly at her food.

"You looked beautiful!" squealed Astrid from behind as she dove down with a hug.

Friend or no friend, Ruff had a sudden urge to punch Astrid, which she fortunately swallowed. "I hate dresses."

"I know. I hate them, too." Astrid joined her on the bench. "But you did look beautiful."

What was Astrid talking about? She was Ruffnut. She wasn't beautiful. Astrid was. "Thanks."

Astrid's tone became more serious. "Are you having any fun?"

Ruff sighed. "I feel entirely neutral. It's a very odd feeling. Though it kept me from screaming when my new husband stuck that sword into that pole." She nodded at the support pillar where Fishlegs had been goaded into stabbing the sword. His strength and skill had been impressive. "I swear, if I get another blessing on my fertility I will scream."

"Like this one?" asked Gothi, who had just come up. "The hammer of Thor, upon your womb!" She dropped a wooden hammer into Ruff's lap.

Astrid buried her face into her hands in obvious laughter. Ruff screamed, but no one seemed to hear her.

"Now, go serve your husband some mead," Gothi suggested in her full-on forceful voice, surprising for such a tiny woman.

Ruff sighed, stood up from the table, and marched to where the mead was being poured. Her mother and father were already there, large cup in their hands.

"Try to have some fun," her mother said as Ruff took the cup.

"That'll take a lot of mead, Mom." Lots and lots of mead. Ruff marched across the room, mead sloshing everywhere, to where Fishlegs stood.

"Here's your mead," she said.

"Thanks," he replied with just as much as enthusiasm.

And once more the hall was quiet, once more staring at them.

Fishlegs sighed. He looked extremely annoyed by all the attention. More so than she felt? "To Odin," he said, taking a long sip. He passed the cup back to her.

"To Freya." She took an even longer sip.

* * *

Fishlegs really wished he could work himself into a berserk rage. Why oh why did he have to be so calm and peaceful? Sounds of celebration still came from the hall, but he didn't get to be there. Oh, no. He had to be the one surrounded by the most sober witnesses available (which wasn't saying much) on the way to the house that was now his. The only blessing was that Snotlout and his comments hadn't been allowed among them.

"Here it is, 'Legs! The night!"

"A wife to enjoy!"

Ruffnut had already gone down a short time before. She was probably waiting with a knife.

The house was remarkably a shorter walk than he had expected. The light from the torches revealed it as closer and closer. It was supposed to be further. Everyone knew it was supposed to be further.

He was beginning to panic again.

But then they were there. The new little house, all charming and cute and fresh and horribly shadowy in the torchlight.

His older cousin threw open the door.

Ruff did not jump out with a knife, and it was a few moments before Fishlegs spotted her, sitting in the bed in the corner, dressed in a surprisingly pretty nightdress, glaring at everyone.

"She's waiting for you!" someone called.

Fishlegs doubted that. Still… it was there wedding night and she was a girl and she was kind of pretty… He allowed himself to be shoved toward the bed and onto it.

Ruffnut didn't react.

"Hey," Fishlegs said.

"Make them leave!" she said coolly.

"But come on—" someone yelled.

Ruff jumped from the bed, picked up an axe from against the wall that Fishlegs was almost positive had not been there the night before, and flung it at the direction of the door. "You can tell everyone you saw us in the same bed!" she screamed.

That sent everyone scurrying.

She opened the door again and slammed it hard. "There," she said breathlessly. "That should do it." She turned back around to face Fishlegs. "I'm not going to be a spectacle tonight again. Ready?"

Well, of course he was ready, but this was Ruff. Was he mentally ready for this? "You know some of them are going to hang around outside. No one's particularly sober tonight."

"I figure it makes it fun." She flung herself back on the bed. "I don't care if they listen. I just don't want them watching!" She collapsed into the pillow and a fit of giggles. "Did you see their faces when I threw that axe? Oh, I was waiting and waiting to do that, but you all just took forever. Couldn't hold a straight face very long." More giggles.

He stared at her. This was so not what he had expected. Then again, what had he expected? "Are you okay?"

She rolled her eyes and the laughing stopped. "I'm fine."

Fine. Okay. Fine was good. He took a deep breath and released it slowly. "So… it's night already."

She sat up. "I got all kinds of advice. You wouldn't believe it. Don't ask me if I get any of it."

Advice. Awkward. He suddenly felt nervous. "So... you want to do this, then?"

"Seriously? What else did you plan on doing? I'm up for it. If you are."

His face went hot. "You're up for it?"

She smiled, a bit nervously, and fiddled with the ends of her hair. "I should get something good out of this. It's the household stuff I don't want."

"Agreed, then?"

"Agreed."

All right. So that was that? Just what was he supposed to do first? He knew what he wanted, but what did she want? He had been told. Women liked romance. But he had never considered himself particularly romantic. "Um, you looked really pretty today."

"You're just saying that because I'm your wife now." Another giggle. "I bet you want to kiss me. I might as well get a good kiss out of this."

All right. He could kiss her. Kissing was great. He leaned over and pecked her on the lips. It was… nice. Their first kiss. Nice. He hadn't expected that. He went again for a longer kiss.

"This is nice," she said softly after the second kiss. "It's been a really long day…"

A third kiss. But they couldn't do that forever. Everyone expected the marriage to be officially consummated at some point this night. And he deserved something for all this and maybe she wasn't that bad.

"I hope you didn't think I was mad at you…" she said going for another kiss. She smelled like Meade hall and flowers. Fortunately, mostly flowers. It was nice. And her was... very pretty. "I'm sorry I said I hated you. I don't. I just hate being married to you right now."

"We just got married, Ruff. What's to hate yet?"

"Oh, everything. Those freaks outside. Wanna go beat them up? Now that would be fun for a wedding night. You'd beat them up?" She went in for a fourth kiss.

Probably wouldn't hurt. "Ruff, I don't think we should…" He had to admit, he did like her kissing. He had not expected that. Tuff would probably pound him in the morning.

"Oh, I get it! You want something else!" She sat back and pulled the nightdress right off. She did have something of a figure, it turned out. She laughed. "This had better be good. I should be having Frigg and Freya on my side right now. And you are kind of cute. I never said you weren't."

He blushed. So she thought he was cute?

That was all it took.

* * *

_Sometimes an animal was sacrificed to invoke gods for the wedding. But we think goats are too cute, and simply making the animal holy was valid as well._

_Friday is Frigg's Day. Popular for weddings._

_The exchange of swords and rings symbolizes union, a sacred bond. The older sword is to be passed onto sons, while the bridal sword with the rings may have symbolized that the sword would be a threat to both were the vows broken._

_Threshold... it was bad luck for a bride to trip over the threshold. _

_Sticking sword into tree/pillar... testing the luck of the marriage by the size of the cut._

_Witnesses... gotta make sure the marriage is made "official"! (Someone did bring up a point that in antiquity that it was not unheard of for witnesses to witness everything, but... we just couldn't be that mean.)_


	6. Hair

Ruff woke up feeling like she had slept for a century. Her eyes slowly opened and tried to focus on the clean new wood of the wall. The wall that was equally clean and new. The new house. Her house. Married life house. The house for the morning after the wedding and the wedding night. She sat up, the blanket falling from her shoulders, and tried to gather up the mess of hair that lay everywhere. Right. Marriage. The wedding. She didn't have to scramble for the memories, they were all right there. Ah. Being romantic. What had she been thinking last night?

Should she be feeling more than she felt?

She finished gathering up her hair and looked across the bed to the still-sleeping Fishlegs. It hadn't been that bad. Pretty all right, actually, though that could be the mead talking in combination with the lack of any real expectations.

Just what had she said last night? Flirted? Called him cute? Which he was, she supposed, though far be it from her to tell him so when she was sober. Cute, mild as the word was, was reserved for someone in whom you were actually interested. She had done exactly what she was supposed to do as a wife and she hadn't complained, had actually enjoyed herself, despite the extreme weirdness. All the advice in the world had not prepared her fore weirdness. But nice. Nice could describe it. Fun. But calling him cute?

And then the kissing. Where had the kissing come from? What had possessed her to let him kiss her? And she had kissed him back way too many times. Do the marriage thing, fine. But kissing? Kissing was a little too romantic and lovey-dovey. That had not been the plan!

Why was the kissing so much more crucial to her than the sex?

She climbed off the bed, avoiding Fishlegs, and picked up her nightdress. Hadn't that been a stroke of genius, ripping it right off? Quite fun, actually, and it seemed to have done the trick. An act of craziness always got her excited, anyway.

She felt so weird. Body, mind, it all just felt weird. She didn't feel happy or sad or angry or anything else she had expected to feel. She just felt… weird. So this was after the wedding. So this was being married.

If only she could shake away the memory of the threshold disaster. Bad luck. Some said it was a silly thing, but she had always believed in signs. Well, that was the only truly terrible thing that had happened so far. Everything else was just… not bad.

The house was small. A single room. Not that they needed anything more. It was well-built, though. There was a rush of excitement at having her own house, but she quickly brushed away the domestic desire. At least she no longer had to live in the same house as Tuffnut. That brought a giggle followed by a wave of sadness. An intense wave of sadness.

Odin, Frigg, and Thor, she was actually married. She had a sudden urge to scream.

A small chest against one wall held her clothes. Ruff tossed the nightdress into it and donned her regular clothes. They felt weirdly childish, and she considered one of her longer skirts, but not long enough to make the change.

"Where am I?" Fishlegs' voice was slurred with sleepiness. Ruff turned to see him sitting up, rubbing his head. His blonde hair stuck up every which way.

She pulled a brush from the chest and began to work on her hair. "Please don't tell me you were drunk too last night. At least I'm with it this morning."

"Oh." He sounded slightly more aware, and took a moment to absorb the room and no doubt the prior day and night. "Good morning."

Not exactly cheerful, but kind. Maybe he wasn't a morning person. "'Morning," she replied, still focused on her hair. Was there anything else she was supposed to say? Nope, a morning greeting would have to cut it.

The next few minutes were silent as she brushed her hair and he got ready for the day. She couldn't decide if the minutes were awkward or not. She didn't mind not talking. So maybe not awkward. Weird, yes. She would have to go with the description of weird. Back home she would probably be screaming at Tuff. But she couldn't say that anymore because this was home.

The minutes of weirdness ended with a rap on the door.

She exchanged glances with Fishlegs, who just muttered "Now what?" He was probably thinking the same thing she was thinking: the lunatics from last night.

"I'll get it," Ruff said, setting down her brush.

It was her mother, beaming and happy despite the misty rain behind her. "Good morning!"

Finally, a perky good morning from a wonderfully familiar face. "Hi, Mom!"

"Am I interrupting anything?" Stormbite asked with a little too much suggestion.

Oh, gods. Not that again. "Well, Mom, we're both dressed. So, obviously, no."

"Just checking. All right, then. Come on." She grabbed her daughter by the arm. "I'm going to help you do your hair."

"Oh, right. Hair. How normal." She glanced over at Fishlegs, who just shrugged. "I guess I'm leaving."

"Okay."

Definitely weird. What kind of people spoke to each other like that?

Ruff stepped out into the rain with her mother. Ah, yes. The rain the wedding day had threatened to give. But she liked it. She had always liked rain. It was refreshing.

She was drenched by the time she made it home. Or to her parents' house. Whatever. She had hoped her father and brother would be there, but it looked like it would be just the women.

"I hope I didn't wake you," her mother said as she shoved Ruff into a chair.

"Mom, we were up."

"I know, but it's early."

"Not that early."

Stormbite squeezed a good gallon of water from Ruff's hair. "Darn rain. I suppose it'll make it easier to put up."

Put up. Hair piled up around her head. Like a married woman's. The panic surprised even her. "Do I have to?"

Stormbite set to brushing. Again. Darn rain indeed. "Ruff, you're not a girl anymore. You're a married woman."

"I don't want to wear my hair up!" She crossed her arms over her chest and sunk sulkily into the chair.

"And I couldn't care less." Her mother dragged the brush through her hair a final time. "You can still braid it, if you like. You have so much of it, thank goodness. I think it would be best if you braided it and knotted it up. I'll show you."

Ruff was silent as her mother worked her hair into plaits.

"You're quiet this morning," Stormbite asked.

"Well, I don't see Tuffnut around to scream at him."

She laughed. "Very true."

Ruff let her hands fall back into her lap. "I guess I'm just thinking."

"About what?"

"I have no idea. This is all weird."

Another laugh. "You'll get used to it."

She had barely adjusted to the marriage announcement, let alone the actual marriage. "When?"

Stormbite paused halfway through a braid. "Oh, I'd say a couple of months."

"Months? Mom, I don't want to wait months!"

"Ruff, you have no patience. How was last night? Was the marriage consummated? Because the law requires-"

She really did not want to talk about that with her mother. " Yes, Mom. We're good there."

"Good. I'll let your father know."

"Mom!"

"Oh, grow up. It's completely natural." She finished the final braid. "Now I'm just going to knot these all together… how was it?"

"All right, I guess."

"You'll have plenty to do," Stormbite said, moving on to everything Ruff described. "Keeping up the house. Perfecting your spinning. Weaving. Cooking. Cleaning."

All the things she hated. "And yet you sent me to dragon training."

"Well, when a dragon goes mad and attacks you, you'll be ready. What more do you want?"

"I still can't believe you did this to me."

"I think it's a little late to have that discussion again. You'll be all right. There. You're done. Braid it up, tie a few knots, and you're ready."

Ruff reached back to feel the fat knot of hair resting against her neck. The weight there was disturbing. She missed her braids. Her juvenile little girl braids. She desperately wanted them back.

Her mother sniffled, and Ruff turned to see her with tears in her eyes. "Mom?"

"Sorry. You just look so grown up. I'm so proud of you."

"Grown-up?" Ruff rolled her eyes. "I feel ridiculously old."

"No, you look beautiful." Another sniff. Ruff really hoped her mother wouldn't burst into sobs.

Fortunately, there was no actual crying. Ruff finally pulled her hand away from her hair. Her weird, weird, hair. "Can I please stay here?"

"What?" All sentimentality vanished from Stormbite's face. "No, you can't. You're married now. I just brought you here to do your hair because it's tradition. Go to your own home. You have a husband now."

"You're kicking me out?"

"More or less. Up." She all but pulled the chair out from under her daughter. "I'd be thrilled to have you come visit and after all this is a very small village, but this is your honeymoon. Go. Finish setting up the house. Talk with your husband. Do something."

And then she more or less kicked Ruffnut out into the rain.

Fishlegs was reading when she returned to the little house. Sitting on the floor, leaning against the bed, reading. What was with him and reading? He looked up, blushing, as she walked in. "Hi."

"Hi." She could feel him staring at her hair.

"You look nice."

"You told me that yesterday." No. She was supposed to be nice. She could be nice sometimes. After all, Fishlegs was now her husband. Wasn't she supposed to be nice to her husband. "Thanks."

"Is that comfortable?"

"My hair? No." She pulled the cloth ribbon her mother had used to tie up the knot and let the braids tumble down. "This is better."

He smiled. "It's how I'm used to seeing you."

"I prefer it." She joined him on the floor. Talking. She was now supposed to talk to him. When had they ever had a real conversation? Questions! Maybe she could ask questions. "What are you reading?"

"An account of all recorded animal life on the island. It's really fascinating. It mentions—"

"Fabulous. That sounds great. I'll just let you go back to reading." She stood up. It was morning. Breakfast. She wasn't hungry. But maybe Fishlegs was. He was a big guy. "Are you hungry?"

"No." He didn't even look up from his boring book. Maybe her cooking skills had preceded her.

Just as well. Some food supplies and utensils—wedding gifts—had been moved in, but she didn't know what to do wit them. Well, she had ideas. She knew what could be done with them by someone who could actually cook. If she couldn't even attempt to cook, what was she supposed to do?

Set up house. Her mother had mentioned that. She set to work with the cooking utensils she did not plan on using anytime soon and began to arrange them on the shelf. It was actually fun. The domestic feeling was returning. Except there wasn't a whole lot to arrange.

So she set to work on displaying her weapons collection.

She was half-way through that when Fishlegs slammed his book shut. "Um, I wanted to apologize for last night."

"Huh?" She set down the shield she had been trying to put against the wall.

"That was really weird. I know you don't like me even if you said you did and... maybe you really didn't want to have..."

"Have what?" She did not want to have this conversation. "It was our wedding night. It's the law. What else did you plan on doing?"

"Yeah, but..."

So now he was apologizing. Acting like he had taken advantage of her. Haha. Really. "So I'm no longer able to bare my soul? Is that it?"

"You were… interesting."

"I know. I remember."

"That wasn't like you."

She sighed. "Don't. And by the way, I got drunk for that. Just be grateful for that."

That shut him up.


	7. Chalk Solutions

Ruff's little revelation kept him shut up the rest of the day, as it turned out. Not the normal Fishlegs-doesn't-feel-like-talking-nothing-personal shut up that was often standard for him. It was a silence of humiliating and fuming anger. He had often felt the latter before during a bezerk rage, but humiliation? He was a geek and a nerd and he was not afraid to admit it and everyone had long ago accepted him as he was. No humiliation there. So humiliation was new to him. He had no idea what to do with it and he did not like it. For Ruff's part she either did not notice or did not care. Knowing her, it was probably an unhealthy combination of both. She spent the day wandering about the house, fiddling with things, humming to herself, acting so unlike Ruff it was scary and yet being exactly herself.

He went outside. He didn't even bother telling her. Like she would care. He stayed close, though, like he was merely getting some air, on the side of the house facing the hill. Everyone could blissfully think he was inside with his new crazy wife and not see him burning in shame and mortification.

So apparently he required her getting drunk? For him, because of him. And he was supposed to be grateful? All he could think of was how much that piece of information had stung and how happy he would be if Thor struck him to the ground right then and there. Here he had been sick to his soul about doing something idiotic and boyish just because he was "supposed to", regretting pretty much everything because in the morning light he was a creep who had taken advantage of a girl—his wife now, but still a girl—only to find out that she was so repulsed by him she chose to knock back a few drinks of mead beyond those for the nuptials in order to do her job.

Something burst inside of him, and he punched the wall. Fortunately, the house was well built. Instead of breaking a good therapeutic hole he may have possibly broken his hand.

Was he supposed to feel guilty now? Had he acted right? Why couldn't she have just said something instead of getting herself ready to just go for it with someone she couldn't stand—him? Stupid wedding night expectations. She could have said something if it had bothered her so much. He would have understood. That at least would have been honest in the first place.

He stayed out as long as he dared. To risk being seen by anyone in the village, that is. Ruff could probably not care less. Why shouldn't he? So far being married to her had just been painful. It was her fault, though. She was the one who had tripped over the threshold and knocked him over. She was the one who had cursed the marriage. But he had never been the one to make waves and maybe the village didn't need to know all about that. He couldn't leave, he was expected to stay in the house with Ruff. So eventually he went back inside.

The place was filled with smoke. Fishlegs sputtered, shielded his eyes, and kept the door open in a desperate attempt to free it. What was she doing? If he could get over what she had said he would have asked her. But then again the answer seemed obvious enough. She stood a few feet from the hearth, coughing and beating smoke with the new blanket from the bed. And there above the hearth sat the source of the smoke: a pot. She had been trying to cook. Right after he had said he wasn't hungry.

"I made that all the time at home!" she shrieked after a coughing fit. "Sometimes I made it! And it never burned like that!"

He had no desire to know what "it" was supposed to be.

The smoke finally faded out the door.

She threw the blanket on the floor and collapsed onto it. "I suppose I should thank you for opening the door."

He shrugged. He had nothing to say to her and he highly doubted she actually wanted to hear anything from him. Last night had been just a huge mistake. Yesterday had been a huge mistake. He picked up his book and returned to reading. Animal life on the island was fascinating. Fortunately. He could get easily lost in it.

"Reading again," she said with a sigh. "And what were you doing outside?"

He was not going to respond to her.

And she truthfully did not seem to care. The questions ended there. He went back to his reading and ignored whatever she spent the rest of the long, long day doing. Which seemed to consist, by the few things that did permeate his consciousness, of wandering around, arranging things, muttering under her breath, and throwing knives.

He did a great job of not speaking to her, if he did say so himself. They had never talked much before. It had worked then, they could make it work now. And it was working.

When evening finally approached he cooked some fish that had been drying. No sense in letting her touch any cooking utensils again. He still refrained from speaking to her, but he left a fish, which he assumed she eventually took; he had returned to reading after getting his share.

Not talking was good. He usually wound up saying something stupid anyway, which was never really a problem until this point. Now she wouldn't have to listen to something stupid from him.

It impressed him how worked up he was over this. He had never really felt emotions that strong. No one had ever dug into him quite that way.

At last it seemed there was nothing else they could do to waste time. The sun had set, there was no point in being awake.

Neither of them mentioned the honeymoon mead they were supposed to drink. Traditions were really sucking at this point. Fishlegs climbed into bed, and it seemed Ruff thought it was a good as time to stop sharpening her knife as any other.

"How about nothing like last night?" she suggested, rolling to the opposite side of the bed. No insult there; he had already claimed his own edge.

"Great idea." First words since morning.

* * *

The idea came to him the moment he woke up. He assumed the inspiration had come from the book, particularly a chapter on habitats and niches of various animals. Everything to its own place. A perfect method of society.

Ruff was still asleep, still at the far edge of the bed against the wall. Fishlegs carefully rolled from the bed, dressed, and headed outside.

It did not take long to find what he needed. A nice chunk of shore had eroded away to reveal a chalk deposit and all he needed was a single piece. And it was still dark, the sun still not considering rising.

Ruff was braiding her hair when he returned. He paused a moment at the door. Her hair was pretty. Ridiculously long and pretty.

"Close the door!" she all but snarled. "It's freezing!"

"Oops. Sorry." He closed the door.

"Where were you anyway?"

"Solving all our problems."

"What problems?" She began to pull the braids up into that weird married hairstyle. He could have sworn she hated it.

"Well, you hate me and I—"

"Oh, right." She frowned as she struggled with tying the braids up, but in the end the knot stayed. "Though I will say they're your fault. You're the one that wouldn't speak to me yesterday."

Girls always had to talk about their problems. "But they'll end today. I got this." He held up the chalk.

Her lips twisted into an odd mocking frown. "A rock. Wow, Fishlegs. You've found a magic rock. What do we do, worship it?"

Thor, was she really that dumb? "It's chalk."

"Oh!" She began to smile. Slightly. At least it wasn't her creepy maniac smile. "Oh, wow. You do have this down."

"Yes. I read about it yesterday. Habitats and niches. Where creatures belong."

"Give it to me. I want to draw the line." She grabbed for the chalk.

"Wait, no!" He held the chalk out of her reach. "We have to think about this! We can't just do a line. Can't you imagine the problems that would cause?"

"You already said we had problems." She made another leap for the chalk. "It'll be easy, we'll just go straight through the floor."

"What about the door?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

"We can't just draw right through so one of us can't get to the door."

"I don't even want to be in this place! I can draw myself right out of the house!" She made a third leap, latched onto his arm, and snatched the chalk right out of his hand.

"Ruff!"

But she was already on hands and knees, pulling the chalk across the nice new floorboards. Fishlegs didn't care in particular about that, but what would his dad think? Then again, it was just chalk. She couldn't draw straight, but soon a rather wiggly line divided the house as well as the door.

"There," she said proudly as she sat up. "Now we both have access to the door. Happy?"

At least no one was trapped in the house. But she wasn't quite getting what he had in mind, though at this point he wasn't quite sure he himself remembered what he had in mind. "What about the bed and the cooking area? You just separated those."

"Easy. I'll take the bed because I hate cooking and you clearly like to eat. Problem solved."

"No!" He grabbed the chalk back while she laughed. "Neutral territories. Where we both can be. Bed, hearth, door." He drew circles around them to demonstrate.

"Um, are we allowed to cross over the chalk or did you just block off those things entirely?"

"I'm just trying to show you—"

"So we're trapped in here now?"

"Ruff—"

"What about the line I drew?"

He started to rub it out with his foot.

"Did I say you could do that?"

He decided to ignore her. "I was just marking off those places as neutral territory. Yes, you can cross the chalk lines. Now for your areas. What do you want for you?"

"Give me the chalk and I'll show you." She held out her hand.

"I am not trusting you with the chalk."

She rolled her eyes and pointed to the weapon-lined wall and an unfilled corner. "Those."

"Some of those weapons."

"Fine. I'll rearrange, mind on the side closest to the corner. "

That sounded fair enough. He walked over and drew the line, giving what he felt like was a generous amount of space. He was the nice guy, after all. "Anything else?"

She shrugged, her expression showing she could care less.

"What about your loom?"

"I hate that thing."

"It'll still be your space."

Another shrug, combined with a toss of the knot of braids. "Fine. Draw a circle around the loom."

He did, then proceeded to mark out his own space around the shelf of books and his side of the weapons wall.

The floor now looked like a map drawn by a toddler.

"I'm confused," Ruff said. "So the rest of it outside the chalk is walking space?"

He wasn't sure. The floor looked like a mess. "I think so. I mean, it would have to be. Wouldn't it?"

She nodded. "Okay, then. Wonderful. What are the consequences?"

"Consequences?"

"Let's say I'm working at my loom, Gefjon forbid, and you accidentally step in that area. How are you punished? Like, do I get a free shot at your head?"

He rolled his eyes. "I'm not going anywhere near your loom."

"But if you did. Theorelelogicaly or whatever that word is. What's the punishment?"

Well, logically, consequences were necessary to make the system work. He glanced at the wall of weapons. "You get to pick something of mine. Or I of yours. How does that sound?"

Her eyes lit up. "That will be perfect. Okay, I'm out of here."

"What?"

She was already pulling knives from the wall. "I'm going to go crazy in here. I can't put up with another day of this honeymoon. It's still early, I'm not going to bother anyone in the village, no one will know I'm not in here."

That sounded like a great idea. "Sneak out, return after dark. Practice stealth."

"Just don't follow me."

"Wasn't planning on it."

The day went perfectly. He went far enough into the woods as not be seen. And when he returned late, Ruff was already asleep.

Perfect.

* * *

_Notes: The concept of honeymoon came from the Norse. Couples were expected to drink the wedding mead (mixed with honey) for about a month together. We're going with a week here._


	8. Dragon Custody

_This is a celebration chapter, it being today Backroads' birthday and also not long after Crazy Friend writing-partner-in-crime finally became officially engaged._

_This goes out to Gumdrop Boo for her suggestion of something that truly needed to be discussed._

* * *

Ruff found both positives and negatives to the week of barely speaking to or even seeing Fishlegs. Not a bad way to spend a honeymoon. Actually, it probably was. Was not that time to be focused on the healthy establishment of a couple? It was questions and problems like that which led to the debate in her head. She had not managed to be caught ignoring her husband and she imagined there would have been a huge hullabaloo if Fishlegs had been anything less than discreet. Thank the gods for a large and fairly untamed island. Her days were lazy, she ate what she wanted (things that did not require cooking), and she was able to take in all the nature and outdoors she wanted as she ran into the woods early each morning for hunting and battle practice. And Hel be informed if there weren't a certain pleasure in the thought they were deceiving the entire community. She felt a little bit of guilt at that, but then again she had done a lot in her life that led to bits of guilt and was capable of handling a little more.

Still, she supposed she could count the guilt as a negative. Not the worst negative, though. Hiding out in the woods all day became lonely. It did not lose its charm, but it became lonely. Ruff had always been a social person, a trait probably stemming from the whole twin thing. She liked people, and if she didn't like certain people being around them was better than being a hermit. But that was not the worst thing, either.

Ruff did not run away from things and she could not decide if what she was doing would be considered running way. She had wanted a few hours' break. Was it Fishlegs who had unofficially suggested both of them playing hooky from the entire honeymoon? But if he weren't going to hang around, neither was she.

Just what was his problem? Had she said something wrong that had made him declare she hated him? Then there had been his apologizing. What had that been for? It had been there wedding night, for Freyr's sake! She had been prepared and so had he. She had merely been a little extra embarrassingly giggly.

Guys were so weird.

Should she have been expecting an apology?

But it never came up again. Granted, she usually arrive home first in the dead of night and subsequently fell asleep. A few nights she had considered waiting up for Fishlegs for the sheer need to talk to someone, but she had never been one for late nights. A weird fact about the local crazy girl. She liked the wildness of daylight. Besides, would it have been worth it to talk to Fishlegs?

Soon the week designated for the honeymoon came to an end and it suddenly was all right to venture out into the society for which Ruff was starved. Fishlegs returned to his apprenticeship (at least, that's what Ruff assumed; there was still no interaction with him) and Ruff was left to wonder just what she was supposed to be doing. Take care of the house? There was hardly a thing that required care. Cook? Spin, weave, and sew? All the little things that should have been better learnt? Her mother was the midwife. Perhaps Ruff should find a craft.

Fortunately, the week of return to normalcy began with Astrid showing up at the door. Bright and early one morning Ruff opened the door to find Astrid beaming at her.

"Hi!" Astrid looked as cute as always, eyes sparking and a smile pounded onto her face. "Are you allowed out yet?"

"Traditionally, yes." It was unbelievably good to see Astrid. Ruff slammed the door behind her. "Let's do something."

Amazing how different the woods could be with a companion. Astrid was adamant at finding some flowers and herbs for dye, and Ruff had spent a week becoming quite familiar to the locations of many good patches. They settled at a large section of strawflower, Astrid kneeling into the mess and Ruff leaning against a tree to watch; she had failed to bring a basket.

"So," Astrid began as she studied each blossom. "How are you doing?"

Ruff shrugged. "I'm fine."

"Good. I'm glad. You look fine. Do you think these will make a strong dye?" She dropped a large purple blossom into her basket.

"Astrid, I've never prepared dye in my life. I'm clueless as to what would work."

"Forgive me for having to find another channel for my dragon-slaying energy." She set once more to the strawflowers. "And also forgive me for saying that you're in the position of requiring such domestic skills. I still can't believe you're married. To Fishlegs, of all people. I never saw that one coming."

"Neither did I." She hadn't bothered knotting up her hair that morning. Astrid hadn't noticed, so much the better.

"So how is it?"

"What's with all the questions?" She considered kneeling down and helping.

"Because we haven't talked in a week. Remember that? Talking? Or has marriage addled your brain?"

Ruff felt her face burn.

Astrid sighed, still smiling, and leaned back from the flower picking. "All right. I'm really hoping that your marriage will inspire my parents to the point of talking to Hiccup's dad. There is some slight leaching here."

Ruff laughed, and she did get down in the flowers. "You really want to get married?"

"Yes. To Hiccup. Duh."

"That would be great for you both. You're meant to be together."

"So I'm not being a silly girl?"

"Maybe. I don't know. I'm not the one dating Hiccup."

"Yes, but you're married." Astrid plucked a flower and picked a rather large spider from it. "Go play somewhere else, little guy. I want details. How you're managing. What to expect."

The first dishonest thought into Ruff's mind was to make up some outrageous lie about how everything was blissful. Then again, this was Astrid, her one female contact in the village who understood the beauty of a sharpened blade. She took a deep breath and pulled her knees into her chest. "Would you mind taking a break from the flower picking?"

Astrid's hand froze around a blossom, then slowly was drawn back. "Sure." Her voice was significantly calmer. "Talk way. Do you want to go somewhere else?"

They were in the middle of the woods. They could be attacked by an escaped disobedient dragon and no one would hear their screams. Ruff shook her head. "Here's fine."

Astrid nodded. "Are you fine?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." She bit her lip. "It's been a weird week."

"Well, yeah, it's been your honeymoon. You've been spending a week with Fishlegs. Who is great, don't get me wrong, but it's so weird to think of you two together. You're getting used to things and –" She put a hand over her mouth. "Sorry. No giving advice. I'm not supposed to that."

"Astrid, there's nothing to get used to. We've been avoiding each other."

"What? How do you avoid each other?"

"Easy. Leave early, get in late. Though he's out later than me. You know I'm incapable of staying up late."

Astrid released a nervous laugh and ran a hand through her bangs. "Ruff, when was the last time you and Fishlegs actually saw each other?"

"Two days after the wedding."

"And you've just been… what, the rest of the time?"

Unbelievable how stupid it all sounded when vocalized. "I've beaten my record on axe throwing."

"Where, exactly?"

Ruff pointed vaguely into the woods. "Somewhere over there. We've both been hiding from the village."

Astrid's face held back a full-on laugh, but her voice remained severe. "Let me get this straight. You two got married, spent a grand total of two days together, and then spent the rest of the time avoiding each other. Ruff, what in Hel's dead field happened?"

Ruff shrugged. "Everything we just described. That's how it went down."

"But I thought you were supposed to be spending the time… you know…"

"And we did. Once. Wedding night."

"Please don't give me details."

"Well, if you're trying to get yourself married off…"

Astrid blushed. "You can give me details then. Was it that bad?"

"I thought you didn't want details."

"I'm trying to understand where you're coming from here."

"I got an onslaught of information that morning. I also wound up a little drunk. And the next day I mentioned to Fishlegs that I had done so on purpose."

Astrid frowned. "Isn't that kind of a low blow?"

"How do you mean?"

"You told your husband, a guy who, let's face it, has never had the bravado of other guys we know, that you had to get yourself fully intoxicated to want anything to do with him. Just saying that's a little cruel."

Great. Now she was the mean one. "That's not fair. I was nervous. I just wanted things to be… fun. And they were."

Astrid put her hands over her ears. "No details."

So this is what all the married women talked about. "Oh, please, that isn't a detail. A little painful, but it was okay."

"Ruff, please stop. I have no desire to hear about you and Fishlegs."

"Fine. I don't even know why I'm talking about it. Sorry. Anyway, the only reason I said that is because he started apologizing to me. Which was really weird. I had to say something."

Astrid grabbed a blossom. "Maybe you should be talking to your mom about this. I don't think I'm qualified."

"But Astrid, it's like he hates me now. We haven't even seen each other! This is Fishlegs. We've known him our entire lives. He's nice, he's sweet, he's really weird, but it's not like I don't like him!"

"So talk to him, then. That shouldn't be too hard."

"Astrid, we sort of… chalked up our own spaces of the house. His idea, not mine."

Astrid stared. "Did the chalk stay?"

"It's been a few days, but yes, most of it's still there."

Astrid shook her head. "You two have to be the worst couple I've ever heard of."

Ruff's face fell into her hands. "Tell me about it. I get slammed with somebody who is sensitive. Just my luck."

"Well, hello, ladies!"

A blast of air knocked over Astrid's basket as a large Zippleback broke through branches to land in the very cramped area. Neither head of the dragon looked happy, though the word could be said of the rider. Tuffnut climbed from the back.

"Tuff!" Ruff cried as she ran to hug him. Whenever was she going to get back the urge to punch him.

"Hey sis." He went so far as to put a kiss on her cheek, a very rare sign of affection. "I've missed you so much, you wouldn't believe what Mom and Dad are like with just me around and I'm sick of being gushy and we really need to get to our old ways."

She stepped on his foot.

"Ouch. Yeah, just like that." Grimacing, he let her go. "How are you?"

One emotional spill was enough for the day. "I'm good. Everything's fine."

He nodded, pleased. "I just saw your husband. Wow, that is so weird to say. Fishlegs. He said the same thing. I'm glad, or I'd have to kill him."

"I'm not ready to be a widow." She could barely comprehend marriage. "You brought the dragon!"

"He misses you."

A scaly head lowered itself to her, and she scratched it under the chin while the other head fought for the same treat. "Question… are we still sharing the dragon?"

Tuff twisted uncomfortably. "Actually, I figured with you getting married and all…"

"That doesn't mean a thing. Half this dragon is mine!"

"He's a living creature! You can't have half unless you want him dead."

She put her hands on her hips and glared. "Oh, yeah? He'll be dead soon with just you taking care of him!"

"He has two heads, he can fend for himself."

"Tuffnut, I want my half."

He climbed back onto the Zippleback. "Whatever. No more dragon killing or something. I'm not letting you chop him in half."

"Every other day," Ruff said.

"What?"

"That's my final offer. Every other day."

"What are you doing to do with him?"

"Fly. I like flying."

"So do I!"

"I'm better."

Astrid ignored them and had gone back to flower gathering.

Ruff marched over to the dragon, grabbed her brother's leg, and yanked him unceremoniously to the ground. "Every other day, and I get him the rest of the day. Not even a full day."

He rubbed his head and nodded. "Fine."

"Good."

"You should just get your own dragon."

"I like this one."

* * *

Ruff had managed to reduce four cods to ashes before one looked edible. The odd thing was that she had never been quite so bad when she had cooked for her mom. In fact, she had considered asking her mother to come help her cook, but she had never made it out the door. Yet somehow it struck her as appropriate that she had no help. She and Fishlegs were married, as lousy a match as they were, and they were both going to have to deal with it.

She just felt absolutely silly preparing a meal, plopping it onto a dish, and setting it on the table.

At last, as the sun began to set through the window, Fishlegs came home. He stopped in the doorway and stared at her.

She stared back.

"Hi," he finally said.

"Hi. Long time no see."

"Yeah. Sorry. Um, why is that Zippleback—"

"I made dinner!" she declared.

His stare switched to the cod. "I already had something to—"

"Oh, please, you can eat more. Sit down."

He nervously sat down. "No offense, but…"

"It's not burned nearly as bad as the other ones I made. And you're in the neutral chalk area, I won't attack you."

He took a small bite of fish. A few chews, a forced swallow. "Ruffnut, I'm really not hungry."

Something snapped inside of her. She picked up the fish and flung it against the wall.

Fishlegs stood up. "That was a good throw."

She nodded and tried to collect her breath. "Thanks. But you should have eaten it."

"I told you I—"

"Oh, whatever. Suddenly you're picky about food."

"What is that supposed to mean? I'm trying to be nice."

"And so am I." She sunk into the other chair. "Look, I've been thinking, and we really need to decide how things are going to work around here. We haven't exactly had a moment to discuss this."

"All right. Fine. We can do that."

"You do the carpentry, the house building stuff or whatever you do, and… I'll practice my cooking."

He nodded, still looking flummoxed at the conversation. "Sounds good. You're going to get help, right?"

She glared.

"I'm sorry. However you want to do it."

"I'm also keeping the Zippleback around. Every other day."

"Here? You're keeping it here?"

She shrugged. And why was it a big deal to him? "Not like I'm keeping him inside."

"But my Gronckle…"

"I'm sure they'll get along. They're just dragons, Fishlegs. I thought you liked dragons."

"I do. I just think two dragons in the same area is bad. Most of them stay around the arena or in the woods…"

"What do you think they'll do to each other?" She stood up and crossed the room to grab his book. "They would have killed each other a long time ago if it were a problem and—"

"Ruff."

"What?"

He was grinning at her. "You're in my area."

She stared down at the faded chalk and swore. "That's not fair. We were having a discussion."

"You agreed to it. I want your short sword."

"It's too small for you, you can't use it."

"I want it anyway."


	9. Violence

"I want it anyway." Fishlegs felt mean just saying it. Feeling mean was a great sensation. They had both agreed to the rules and the consequence and though he had technically assumed it had only begun as an attempt at peacekeeping there would be something so great about snatching that precious sword from Ruff. Only Astrid was more possessive of weapons. So what if the sword was useless to him? He could use it as a knife. The object wasn't just to make her follow through.

It was to see her get mad.

"You can't have it." She crossed her arms over her chest, the dragon manual still dangling from her right hand, and glared. Her glare was something one might find on a wild animal, possessing a feral quality had always somewhat scared him.

Until now. Now the glare was just funny. What could she do to him? It was all he could do to keep from laughing at her.

"We made a deal. That was the consequence."

She continued to glare, now with the deep breaths of a temper tantrum as her face went red. But instead of exploding, she merely said "Fine."

"Really?" he asked with surprise. It had been that easy? Cool.

She then proceeded to fling the dragon manual against the wall. It struck hard and dropped to the floor, landing with covers open and pages flailing.

Fishlegs stared at the book, stunned. She had not just thrown a book. Books were not weapons, they were not meant to be thrown. "Hey!"

But she ignored him. She stomped over to her side of the weapons wall, grabbed the short sword, and threw it at him. He had to duck.

"There," she said. "There's your sword. Happy?"

She was completely crazy. Which had always been fun before to watch, but now it was just annoying. He picked up the sword, trying to ignore the fact that it was too small. "Yes, I am. Now apologize for the book!"

"The stupid dragon book?" She looked at him as if he were the crazy one. "What? I am not apologizing for that!"

He raised the sword.

"Please. Like you'll actually attack me."

She was right. Darn it. "Then I get to do this for free." He walked over to the untouched loom and stood right in the circle.

"That's my space! Or niche! Whatever you said!"

"You threw my book! You probably broke the spine!"

"Good! But you just broke the rules. Books were never mentioned." She grabbed his favorite shield from the wall. "I get this now!"

The one he had carved himself. It was his pride. "Put that back."

"Make me." Ruff stuck out her tongue.

She was so immature. "Put it back now!"

She hung it up on her side of the wall. "I think it looks great here, don't you? Want it back? I'll give you a chance." She jumped back in the space of the bookshelf and began tossing the books to the floor.

He almost screamed.

"Aren't you pleased I'm not throwing them this time?"

He did the meanest thing he could think of. He pushed over the loom.

And all she had was the nerve to laugh. "You know I hate that thing."

"That's because you can't use it."

She picked up a book and threw it at his face. This time she did not miss. "I get something for that."

"Yeah, well, I get something for the bookshelf. So you don't get to take anything."

"That's not how it works!"

He beat her to the weapons wall and spread his arms over his side. "Don't you touch a thing."

She rolled her eyes and pulled an axe from under his arm. "I just did."

He snatched her spear and pointed it at her. No intentional harm. Just wanted to scare her because she was so frustrating.

With a cry she brought down the axe blade onto the spear. One half fell to the ground.

He laughed. "You know that was your spear, right?"

Her face reddened again. "Yeah, but now you're weaponless."

"Doesn't matter. I'm stronger than you."

"You oaf." She swung the axe up again.

Great Odin, was she actually trying to kill him? With a cry he jumped back against the wall. A shield. He needed a shield. He grabbed his, the one she had taken.

"That's mine now!" She lowered the axe.

"Well, I'm holding it now."

Up went the axe.

Fishlegs raised his shield and closed his eyes.

But there was a whir through the air followed, by a loud shatter and the sound of something spilling.

"Oops."

Fishlegs opened his eyes. Ruff must have thrown the axe another direction, right into the jug of honeymoon mead they had not been drinking. Shards littered the floor, and the mead flowed from what was left of the jug.

"Did you do that on purpose?" he asked.

"No. I just meant to throw it somewhere else. You didn't think I was actually going to kill you?"

"Um…"

She began to laugh. "Well, that takes care of that."

He wasn't so amused. "Now it's going to smell. That stuff is pungent."

"What?"

He sighed. "Let's just clean it up."

"What do you mean?"

"Please tell me you've at least cleaned before."

She shook her head and moved to get the mop. "Yes, I know how to clean a spill. I was attempting to make a joke, lighten the mood."

"It wasn't very funny."

"Like you would even know."

Despite the mopping and scrubbing they both did, the smell lingered in the air the entire night, and Fishlegs fell asleep wondering if the fumes would have any effect. Ruffnut didn't seem to notice, but curled up against the wall and fell immediately asleep.

She was so weird. Why had he never noticed before?

* * *

He awoke that next morning to find their weapons restored to their proper places and Ruffnut attempting to cook something again. There didn't seem to be anything burning yet, and he didn't dare say anything to her. Her hair was loose, slightly snarled, and she wore a scowl.

His books were still scattered. He quietly made his way over to the shelf to stack them. They were fine, no damage. Good. The dragon manual had also suffered very little. Thank goodness.

"Here," she said. "Breakfast. I can cook, you know. Some things."

Did he trust her when she sounded this irritated? Then again, saying no had upset her last night. He took a bowl and a big spoonful of the stuff in the pot. A simple porridge. He had been making the same stuff since his dad trusted him near the fire. "This is all you can make without burning?"

Her eyes narrowed.

It had sounded so much more innocent in his head.

"I woke up with a big headache and I still have it. It's food. I made it just fine. Eat it."

"I was just pointing out the fact that it's a very basic recipe and—"

Another glare. He shut up and took a bite. It was pretty good. A little bland. Then again, it was just porridge. Her crowning cooking achievement. He took another bite. "You know, you could probably add some spices or—"

"Ideas. Great." Again interrupted. "I know how to cook porridge, thank-you very much. I just happen to find it boring." She sat down at the table and rubbed her head. "You were right about the mead. It does stink. What did you call it?"

"Pungent?"

"Yeah, that."

"It's probably what is causing your headache. Bad smells can do that."

"So now you know everything there is to know about headaches as well as dragons?"

He blushed. "You're the one that spilt the stuff."

"On accident."

He decided not to bring up the axe.

The sun was still rising when he left the house, shadows still spilling over the hill. The Zippleback hung in the back, both heads still dozing. The Gronckle, however, was awake, a low growl rumbling from her throat. Were dragons really so territorial? Fascinating. It wasn't even like she usually hung around so close anyway. She preferred the woods. Fishlegs walked over to her to scratch her on the forehead. She still snarled.

"He won't be here all the time," he said. "He's just visiting."

One Zippleback eye opened and stared at Fishlegs.

He had never fully recovered from his first Zippleback experience. But he knew plenty about dragons.

The other eye opened, then the other head completely woke up. Both heads lifted, both pairs of eyes stared.

He slowly backed away. The Gronckle continued to growl.

"Nice dragons," he muttered.

He heard the click of the fire lighting before the ball of flame rushed out.

He screamed and ran.

Ruff had probably trained it to do that.


	10. Spinning and Sparring

"Ouch!" The spindle fell to the floor, taking with it the chunk of wool, much of it already splattered with blood. Ruff swore as she stared at her bleeding palm. A longer slip of attention might have sent the spindle point right through her hand. Not an impressive battle scar at all. A better story for it would have to be created.

"Again?" Astrid fought back a grin, and set down the spindle full of perfectly formed wool. "Didn't you just do that like-?"

"Two months ago," Ruff replied, tearing the wool away from the sorry excuse for thread and pressing it the wound. "I haven't done that for two months! And the last one got my arm instead of my hand. See? Completely different." She held up the forearm of the bleeding hand where a little white scar still remained in the fanciful shape of an arrowhead.

"And you're still telling people it's from falling off a cliff?"

"Feeding a dragon from my hand." The wound began to itch. Perhaps wool straight from the sheep's butt was not the best choice. "I've never told anyone I've fallen off a cliff."

Astrid nodded slowly. "Do you want me to clean that for you? You kind of got blood… everywhere."

True indeed. Now there was a nice ring of blood on the floor where she sat. It had been over a week since the big fight with Fishlegs and the last of the chalk had faded days ago, but now she would be expected to clean blood out of wood. Ruff pulled back the handful of wool and winced when it stubbornly clung. The bleeding was slowing and the nice little hole in her hand seemed clean enough save for the sheep hairs stuck in it. How ugly would that get? She ripped out what she could. No, she did not want Astrid to clean her hand. "I'm good."

"Are you sure?"

Ruff nodded.

"You have such a weird thing for scars and festering wounds and all of that, you know."

"Yeah, I'm morbid. I'm a Viking. Do you think I should wash this or throw it away and pretended it never existed? I mean, it really stinks." She held up the bloody ball of wool for Astrid's assessment.

Astrid made a face. "Throw it away. What happened there, anyway? You just started staring off into space."

Ruff shrugged. "I hate spinning."

"You looked a little tired there."

Another shrug. Probably the truth right there. No, better describe it as exhausted. Boredom sure could zap a lot of strength from a girl who really should be out over the seas slaughtering and pillaging for the pure and simple fun of it rather than cleaning and filling up water jugs and attempting to make cloth and cook. Occupied described her life now as there sure was a surprising amount to do, but actively interested did not.

"Do you honestly want to sit here doing this?" Ruff asked. "It's not like anyone is checking up on us."

Astrid knocked everything from her lap to the floor and stood up. "Get me out of here."

"Glad you're going nuts, too." Ruff kicked the spindle into the corner and jumped up. Her hand seemed to be clotting, and hopefully a good tussle wouldn't send it bleeding again. Blood was so annoying after the initial glory, but there was no glory in spinning yarn.

"Of course I'm going nuts. I'd kill for some action around here. What shall we do?" Astrid was already examining Ruff's collection of weapons. "A good spar? I'm so out of practice."

"You can take something of Fishlegs', if you want. He won't get mad." Ruff picked his sword. Or her sword. Whichever. The new one from the wedding. "Race you to the arena!" She dashed out the door, noticing Astrid gleefully selecting Fishlegs' axe.

Ruff had never before appreciated just how wonderful was the fresh air of Berk. She breathed in deeply, loving it all, including the odors of fish and sheep. The amazing world of outside! It wasn't like she was spending an absurd amount of time indoors, but right now outside was the perfect thing. She needed outside.

The arena was mainly being ignored, a few dragons lazily snapping at each other. No biggie. In fact, a random mad dragon attack could be just the thing. The girls darted inside, Astrid already swinging the axe around before Ruffnut could even think about parrying.

Axe bit into sword with sparks as Ruff tried to hold herself up. Astrid had always been excellent at fighting. Astrid was excellent at everything. But that didn't matter. It had been over a week since Ruffnut's last good fight and that was far too long. She laughed and said they should maybe consider shields.

Shields, however, just made things more violent. There was something about that wooden barrier of protection that just made it all the easier to go wild when swinging sharp things. It was wonderful, and if someone was going to madly attack you that person might as well be Astrid. Ruffnut didn't know how much time had passed before they both dropped their weapons and sunk, laughing, to the ground.

"That was fun," said Astrid as she wiped dust from her braid. "No one fights anymore. Well, they do, but not like before. Just what are we expected to do when we run into other tribes?"

"Be diplomatic?"

They both laughed.

"Seriously," said Ruffnut. "I think the two of us should start randomly attacking people in the village just to keep everyone alert and on their toes."

"Only you would come up with an idea like that."

"No, think about it. Someone wakes up in the morning, groggily wanders outside, and bam! There's you with a sword."

"Could it be someone annoying?"

"Sure. Anyone and everyone. We should start it today." She yawned. She was more out of practice than she had thought. "Or tomorrow."

"You mean you don't want to fight the dragons?" Asrid asked.

The dragons, two Deadly Nadders, were now studying both girls.

'Though if our fight didn't set them off," she continued, "Nothing will."

Ruff toyed with the idea of tossing a sword at them. She loved dragons, loved riding them, using them, having them around, but there was still that secret thrilling dream of getting in a good life-or-death brawl with one. "Did I tell you what I trained my Zippleback to do?"

"I thought your brother had it today according to your weird custody system." Astrid was on her feet, slowly making her way to the exit.

Ruff followed. "Oh, this was weeks ago. I had actually forgotten about it. I trained him to attack Fishlegs."

"What?"

"Well, not attack, then. Just get very, very threatening."

Astrid laughed. "Why would you do something like that?"

Ruff shrugged.

"You have so many issues. Shall we go back to spinning?"

"Nah. The sun is setting. Forget that."

That seemed good enough for Astrid, who probably wanted to go back to spinning, for all Ruff knew. She smiled. "Good. I'll just grab my stuff and tell my mother I actually did work today."

Barely had Astrid spoken than wings beat above them louder and louder until a large Night Fury landed in the middle of the path.

Okay, Ruff had to admit tame dragons were still cool that way. "Hi, Hiccup," she said, waving to the boy on the dragon. Still the dorkiest boy in the village.

"Hi," he replied, but Hiccup's eyes were on Astrid. "Ride?"

Astrid gave that little blush-and-grin thing she did. "Ride. Bye, Ruff. I'll get that stuff later." She hopped onto Toothless' back and tossed the axe back to Ruff.

Ruff waved again and watched them take off. That sounded fun. When was the last time she had gone for a dragon ride? Maybe she should steal the Gronckle. She had yet to ride one of those.

But instead she found herself pushing open the door and dumping the weapons onto the floor. No sign of Fishlegs quite yet, though she imagined he would be home soon to spend the evening the way they always did, doing their own things.

Cooking. She should probably cook something. She was beginning to be able to fry up a fish without too much drama. Except the only fish she could think of were drying outside and she had no real desire to head out that way. She stuck her hand into the grain basket with the mild idea of making a few biscuits but jerked it back with a gasp.

She had so not touched grain in there. She tossed the basket lid aside and stared down.

An eel. Several eels, actually. She gingerly pulled them out and tossed them onto the table. Disgusting. What in the world were…

She closed her eyes. Fishlegs. Oh, how cute and clever eels were. That was just gross.

And was that honestly the best he could come up with?

She picked them up again and tossed them on tops of the books in his precious shelf. There. Much better.

Though she had to admit she had lost any and all appetite. Well, the eels had been his idea. He could figure something out for food all by himself. The moment he walked through the door, that was what she was going to tell him. She could give a pretty good chewing out when needed.

She jumped onto the bed to await the moment. The wool and spindles still lay in the corner. Oh well. Though that did remind her to check her hand. Then she yawned again. Barely sunset and she was already this tired. Well, she didn't have to be sitting. She stretched out over the bed.

What seemed a moment later her eyes flew open and stared into the darkness lit only by the glow from the hearth. She had fallen asleep? She sat up quickly, but the blanket over it forced her back down. She pushed it away, shook her head, and stared out the window. Middle of the night, definitely. On the other side of the bed was the sleeping form of Fishlegs. Great. She was supposed to have yelled at him. Now she had missed that and now that she was thinking about it she was still ridiculously sleepy.

She'd have to yell at him about the eels in the morning. Or wait for him to find them. Which would be better?

She settled back against her pillow and pulled the blanket back over herself. Funny. She had just lied back on the bed. She didn't remember getting underneath the blanket.

Her thumb rubbed against her palm. She also didn't remember bandaging her hand.


	11. Insanity and the Waxing Gibbous

_First, a note to everyone who read the last chapter:_

_There's all these little "awws" and "so cute" and all this other gag-worthy stuff. Like you all thought it was Fishlegs who put the blanket over her and bandaged her hand! And you all just had to coo and go crazy over something you couldn't prove. Those reviews were nauseating to read! Could it not have been someone else who wandered in and took care of her? Like Santa Claus or Human Toothless? You people and your assumptions! Geeze!_

_Kidding. You're all loved._

_Next, Backroads, after pulling out her dragon game on her iphone whenever she was bored, finally achieved the Legendary Night Fury Secret Code only to realize it tragically did not apply to her phone game but to games on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. So... if you want 'em, say so so they can be put to good use._

_Third, we dare any of you to watch "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" and NOT think "Hiccup!". It will make the movie all the more amusing._

_Fourth, to those of you who are weirdly "collecting" information, you're weird! *laugh evilly* Nah, here's another one for you in this chapter._

_Last, this chapter is dedicated to all the little Boy Scouts trying to get the astronomy merit badge every summer who wouldn't shut up and listen to Counselor Emily or any other poor Astronomy merit badge instructor out there. You're the reason she switched to running the waterfront!_

_Okay, then. Now for an actual chapter. Is it too chatty?_

* * *

"She's insane."

Tuffnut rolled his eyes as he pulled his knife-throwing hand back. "I know. At the beginning of my life I got to spend a whole fifteen minutes without her and then she was born and the rest is history. I know she's insane." He swung his arm forward and the knife zoomed across the Hall before completely missing the post and clattering to the ground.

"No, I don't think you do know," said Fishlegs. A thunderstorm had appeared out of nowhere half an hour before making any and all outdoor work impossible and Meade Hall suddenly the place to be. Usually he would have been perfectly happy to kick back and watch whatever drunken brawls or displays of weapon skills went on, but the sight of Tuffnut had unleashed something inside of him that rarely came out: The need to complain. Maybe his wife's brother wasn't the ideal one to whine to, but he would have the most experience with Ruffnut and Fishlegs was pretty confident he could take Tuff down if it came to a fight.

"Fishlegs, I'm pretty sure I know about her insanity."

"I mean, she's completely insane!" Fishlegs held his hands up in the air for emphasis. "Like a negative fifteen points off stability."

Tuffnut paused in retrieving his knife to shoot him the look that meant he had said something far too weird. "I am not even going to pretend to know what that means."

"It means she is not normal."

"Dude, I know!" Tuffnut picked up his knife, flipped into the air, and caught it in his other hand.

Fishlegs lowered his hands back to his lap. "I'm pretty sure she hates me. A lot. Like, with all the energy of the sun or something that if she could just channel it all together into some ball of hate energy and she could kill me with it. She already has your Zippleback against me."

Tuffnut laughed and threw the knife again, this time sending it whizzing over someone's head without drawing his attention. "That's pretty cool. Does it attack you?"

"It's going to one of these days!"

"Good old-fashioned dragon fighting. Those were the days. Now has Ruff actually attacked you? Because she will do that if she's mad at you."

"A couple of weeks ago."

He laughed again. "I would have loved to see that. But she doesn't hate you. Trust me. If she had said anything to me about hating you or you making her really upset, I would have killed you five seconds later."

The look on Tuffnut's face promised he wasn't kidding, and Fishlegs gulped. Was he so sure he could hold his own against an angry Tuffnut?

The look did not fade from Tuffnut's face. "Do you hate her?" It was a very good thing he had not gotten his knife back.

Fishlegs shook his head. "No! I just said she was insane! That's all I said."

Tuffnut continued his glare.

"I think she's pretty and a really good fighter." Despite thinking that was a decent response he squeezed his eyes shut against any following attack. "I don't hate her. I just think she hates me. Did you know that got herself purposely drunk for—"

"I really don't want hear about that," said Tuffnut, holding up a hand and clamping his fingers shut. Then he sighed and sat down. "Look. I'm trying to be sympathetic here. I really am. But at the same time I really don't care. Got that? As long as my sister is reasonably happy, I really don't care about anything you have to say. She's yours to deal with now. My dad even says the same thing. Though he'd kill you, too, if she were upset. Just letting you know. But, hey, I'm trying this whole nice-guy sympathy thing to see if there's anything to it. Believe it or not, she does like talking about as much as any other female. Have you tried…" He paused to search for the word. "… holding a conversation with her?"

"A few times. I'll try to tell her what I'm reading. Then she gives me this really weird look and walks off."

"Yeah… that's kind of the same thing everyone else does when you talk like that."

Fishlegs decided not to respond to that. "Anyway, it doesn't matter, because the last five days she's been falling asleep by sunset."

"Huh." Tuffnut picked at a splinter on the table as thunder blasted outside. "That's weird for her. She must be ignoring you."

"By going to sleep?"

"Yes. It's what girls do to avoid people. One of the things they do, anyway."

Fishlegs stared at Tuffnut for a long time. The guy discussed all of this like he was discussing the best way to catch a fish. Finally he said, "Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

Tuffnut shrugged. "I didn't realize I was supposed to be making you feel better. I thought you just wanted to talk about how insane Ruff is. And now I'm bored of that and it's still pouring out there." He stood up. "Wanna see if we can convince Snotlout to take more drinks than he can handle?"

Well, even talking about Ruffnut drove him nuts. "Sure."

* * *

The storm did not stop until after dark, but the clouds were already drifting away when Fishlegs left Meade Hall. There was a disgusting sensation of laziness that accompanied spending so many hours there but then again half the village had been there as well and it wasn't like they could build in the rain. He had just never liked being unoccupied. Probably what had prompted him to read the dragon manual seven times.

The air was still muggy with rain and the ground one giant mud pit. His dad's house was closer, and he considered going there for the night and seeing if Ruff would notice or care, but the concept of that was laughable. In fact, he did laugh at the idea.

Horrorcow was thrilled by all the mud. Fishlegs had never exactly made her a pet, but she did seem happy to stay around the new house. Now she burrowed and rolled in all the mud with all the delight of a puppy. At least the Zippleback wasn't there. He stroked her on her chin, which only caused her to roll and splash mud all over him.

"Great," he muttered, though maybe the action of tracking mud would irritate Ruffnut. If she were awake.

But true to recent form the first thing he saw when he opened the door was her curled up on her side of the bed, still in her clothes and unconscious.

"Ruff," he called loudly.

No response. So Tuffnut had said she was ignoring them? Did that mean she was pretending to be asleep or she was actually falling asleep for real on purpose just to avoid him? Either way, it was insulting. Was he that bad to be around? He carefully pushed her aside to pull the blanket out from under her body to put it over her; the nights were getting gradually colder and he could see her freezing one night and it being all his fault. She mumbled something in her sleep, but her eyes did not open. What would she do if he grabbed a piece of charcoal and drew on her face? Probably kill him. Would it be worth it? That was something to consider.

The pile of spun yarn in the corner was the biggest he had seen it, and all the wool was finally gone. Spinning was so weird. The most he had ever spun was rope, and that process had driven him nuts. He had heard enough from Ruffnut to know she detested it as well. But here it now was, a giant pile of wool finally spun into bundles of yarn, all her hard work and suffering over.

It was just too tempting. Now where could he possibly hide it all?

Under the bed? Too simple. Outside in the rain and mud? Too mean. Then he looked upwards. The rafters. Perfect.

He piled all the yarn onto the table, then placed a chair on top of it, just high enough that he could climb onto the lowest beam. He was not exactly small and light, but he had spent too many years building houses to have any qualms or problems with heaving himself up, a few yarn bundles in one hand, and making his way to the most frustrating places to tie up out of sight those very bundles. Twenty minutes was all it took to get everything up. He jumped back to the ground, tried to catch his breath, and admired his work. Marvelous. If one didn't know what to be looking for they wouldn't see a thing. At least he had for a short time spared her from that loom she hated.

Ruffnut had slept through all of it.

He next checked to see if she had cooked anything. Another oddity about her falling asleep so early was the inconsistency of cooking. Some nights something was laid out in varying states of lukewarm and other nights there was nothing. Truth be told he did not really care much either way and could cook circles around her, but she was getting slightly better and he did like food. Nothing that night. He glanced at the bed. What was she eating every night? She was eating, right? Maybe if she ate more she wouldn't be so tired.

Well, he wasn't tired even if she was. The task of hiding her yarn had left him rather exhilarated and somewhat nervous about being in the same house as her. Was that a normal sensation after pulling a prank?

The storm clouds were all but gone, judging from what he could see from the window and the roof's smoke hole. Awhile ago he had discovered a new interest in astronomy, had even been writing stuff down in a very Hiccup-like fashion. He grabbed the notebook and a candle and headed back outside.

The night was freezing, but the sky was perfectly clear, as if the storm had washed away any clouds and clutter from it. He sat down on the hill, a spot a good distance from the house, and began to scribble. The nice part about stars was that they required no drawing talent whatsoever. Plus comparing sky maps from different days rocked. It was thrilling just thinking about it. Not nearly as cool as dragons or anything else violent like that, but still thrilling in its own right.

"What are you doing?" Ruff stood outside the house, rubbing sleep from her eyes while her voice and face expressed that she clearly thought he was an idiot.

He stared at her, wondering if she had noticed her yarn was missing yet. "Um… I thought you were asleep?"

"And now obviously I'm not. Again, what are you doing out in the dark?" She started her way over the hillside.

"Mapping the stars?" Amazing how stupid it sounded out loud.

She nodded, yawned, and plopped down next to him. Loose hair was popping out every which way from her braids. The effect was very… frizzy. "Exactly why would you being doing that?"

"Um…"

She just shook her head. "You are so weird."

Fishlegs kind of wished she would just go back inside, but he didn't dare say that. "Well, all you do lately is sleep." Did that count as attempting a conversation?

"I know. It's really annoying. I'm wasting so much time, but it's all I want to do lately."

"You're not sick, are you?"

She laughed. "I've never been sick a day in my life. Maybe if I had something stimulating… let's see how this works out for me." She grabbed the notebook from him and flipped through the pages. "Wow. Dots. Amazing."

"They're stars," he shot back.

She just nodded. "Super. You're great at drawing dots." She flipped through a few more pages. "And circles."

"That's the moon!" He tried to grab the notebook, but she held it out of his reach. She had great reflexes for a girl who still looked half asleep.

"Fishlegs, why are you drawing the moon?"

He finally stood up and snatched the book back. "To record it. See?" He flipped open to a page, the need to show her suddenly overwhelming him. "This is a drawing of the new moon. Actually, there's nothing for it. Here it is at the waning crescent. This one is 40% to full, this one is a drawing of the moon at full. Here's 17% to full…"

It was working. She didn't care. Her eyes were blinking back sleep. He flipped to a fresh page and sketched the moon as it was. Thank goodness he only had to draw varying degrees of circles. "And this is the moon now at the waxing gibbous, it will be full in a few nights…"

"What?" Her eyes popped open as she stared up at the moon.

"Well, when the moon is waxing it's going toward full—"

She punched him in the shoulder. "I know that, idiot!" She took a deep breath and looked up at the moon again. "It… it is at… whatever you called it." She was now completely awake.

"Waxing—"

"I'm going back inside," she said quickly, interrupting him. She sounded very distracted. "Good night. Have fun drawing your dots." She bolted back to the house.

Fishlegs stared after her. That had been weird. She was completely insane.


	12. Flukes

"And you're sure it's not a fluke?

Stormbite barely looked at Ruffnut, and just casually dunked the jug into the water and flicked a few pine needles from the surface. Her voice was gratingly casual, like she was discussing nothing more vital than the very act of drawing water from the spring. Her face was merely serene. For all Ruffnut knew, her mother was thinking about something else.

Maybe that was the problem here. Maybe Stormbite thought she was talking about something else. Like a dragon sneezing or another one of the random dragon concerns possible. The dragon did not have pneumonia; it's a fluke, it's allergic to something. Even though Ruffnut was pretty sure that was not the correct usage of the word fluke. Fishlegs would probably know. She'd have to ask him and then listen to some drawn-out explanation about it. Better that than asking him about dragon pneumonia and hear the resulting tale of dragon sneezes blasting out fire at whatever speeds and velocities and who really cared about any of that? If she had been in a better mood she would have laughed at the idea. Maybe she should ask him, just for kicks.

Too bad that was not her concern of the moment.

"What do you mean a fluke, Mom?" She scooped a handful of water from her own jug and let it drip from her fingers. Hers had dead leaves in it—the crumbly kind that were almost impossible to remove. Those would have to be strained out. Yes, winter was coming on quick and she could already see her breath in the air and the stone she sat on was cold.

"I don't know! A fluke!" Stormbite set her jug down and waved at a few more women approaching. "These things happen. You're in a new situation, so you're probably stressed, you're young, there's quite a few possibilities."

"But you always said—" Ruff brought her voice down to a whisper as the women approached. This was not the conversation to have in public. "—that this sort of thing happens."

"But it could be a fluke. Let's leave before Kolla feels conversational.

"Perfect plan." Ruffnut stood up quickly, water sloshing over her boots. Oh well. "Let's leave before she overhears us and blabs to the entire village."

"Ruff, you don't even know if there's anything to blab about." Stormbite moved quickly from the spring. "Though I understand your concern about a disastrous rumor."

"Exactly!" The rumor fantasy in her mind was too awful to mention.

Her mother did not speak again until the spring was a long way behind and the immediate village area was clear. "So what did you think you were at?"

Ruff traced an image of the moon in the air with her finger. "Somewhere between crescent and half. And now the moon's almost full, Mom. Almost full in a couple of days. I'm having a personal crisis here."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, Mom, I'm sure the moon is full. See?" She pointed up at the moon, visible even in the daylight. "I'm not an idiot, I pay attention to these things."

"And you're positive?" Still with the calm, nothing-is-wrong tone complete with an upward gaze at a soaring dragon. "I need to ride a dragon one of these days. It looks like so much fun. Think of all the people I could spy on."

"Mom!"

Stormbite sighed and stopped next to her house. Ruffnut's old house. Home. "Sweetie, I'm not sure what you expect me to do about this. So you're late. That really doesn't mean anything yet and you're jumping to conclusions and panicking and overreacting and is it really that big of a deal?"

"You tell me!" exclaimed Ruff, setting down her water jug with another tremendous splash. How was this anything but a big deal? She had spent the past three days as a nervous, panicky, way-too-sleepy wreck. "You're the midwife!"

"All right, all right. Just figured you've been around my line of work long enough." Stormbite pushed open the door. "Do you want some ginger or something?"

Ginger. Ruffnut crossed her arms over her chest, as far from her stomach as possible. She hated ginger. She hated the way it tasted, the way it smelled, the way it looked. Ginger was the bane of her existence. But there was her mother, standing in the doorway, with that nothing-is-wrong smile. "Sure." Her voice was as disgusting as she felt.

Inside, her mother set a pot of water on to boil and went to her shelf of jars. Ruffnut had never before noticed that massive quantities of jars. Did this many herbs grow on the island? Why had she never bothered to count those stupid things while growing up? Would it not have been natural? A hands-on item for counting? Hadn't she spent her formative years in the chore of collecting some of those things? Or had they multiplied overnight? All those jars and her mother's instructions on which ones to use and why to avoid using too much and which ones to definitely stay away from and all those house calls and late nights and her mother's role in Berk and…

She screamed. Loud and hard and long. All of Berk would think she had been attacked by a dragon or stabbed or beheaded or something.

And when all the screams she had to scream had fled her body she took a deep breath and sunk to the table. Immediately she felt a hundred times better. It was like emptying out the scream made way for a gushing river of healing water to flow through her body and make everything better. At least the panic was gone. She could do this. This was okay. She could even choke down a few swallows of ginger tea and all its nutrition and suffer the taste of the stuff even if this turned out to be just a fluke.

Of course her mother hardly responded. She just pulled out the jar of ginger and set it on the table. "Done?"

Ruff nodded. "Done."

"I really hate it when you scream in the house."

"Tuff's louder."

Stormbite laughed and sat down next to her. "First time you admitted that."

Ruff's hand gripped the table. "No way. He's not louder, is he? I did not admit anything, I was complaining."

"I know." She rubbed Ruff's back. It felt wonderful. "So. If this is not a fluke, what are your thoughts on it?"

Thoughts? She was supposed to have thoughts beyond mindless panic? "I don't know! You're telling me it's a fluke!"

"Does Fishlegs know?"

"Know what? You're a lousy midwife who will neither confirm nor deny my terror here. What am I suppose to say?" She now gripped the table with both hands.

"Well, we can't be sure for a little while longer." Stormbite kissed her daughter's cheek and stood up. "I'll make that tea. Just in case."

"I hate ginger," Ruffnut muttered into the table.

The mug was slammed down in front of her. It stunk. But she reached forward to grab it and sip it. It tasted like it smelled. She was mastering her gag reflex when the door opened. Great. Her father. "Hi Daddy."

"Ginger?" Tuffnut Senior made a face. "I hate the smell of that stuff. I thought you hated it."

How with it was he?

"But I'm glad to see you here, Ruff. I brought you something."

It had better be good.

"Consider it a late wedding present. Something for the house."

Wedding present. She spat the current mouthful of ginger tea back into the mug to prevent herself from choking during the sudden eruption of giggles. They lasted nearly as long as the screaming. Here she was, clutching the table for support, laughing hysterically while her poor confused father looked on.

"I… guess I missed something," he said slowly. "I'll just give you my gift."

Something meowed.

Oh, Freya. There in her father's hands was a tiny fluffy kitten. Its fur was grey and white and its eyes were blue and the worst part of the situation was she found it absolutely adorable. What was wrong with her? She trembled as she took it. "Um, thanks. Is it dragon food?"

Her mother laughed while her father replied very seriously that it was for mice. Truthfully, giant dragons weren't the best at keeping away mice.

Ruff stared at the kitten, and it licked her nose. An irritating little kitten. Fabulous.

* * *

The kitten was happy enough to be hidden under the covers after a meal. Good little kitten. Ruffnut herself wanted nothing more to fall asleep, but she had work to do. She made sure the kitten was settled in and willing to stay, then reached under the bed for the yarn.

Rafters. Hah. Fishlegs was an amateur.

The beginning of some cloth was on the loom. She carefully pulled it off and rolled it up. There was a learning curve to pulling unfinished cloth off a loom, but it was one she was going through quickly. Then she leapt from the table onto the lowest rafter, holding the cloth between her teeth. She shuffled up the beam, thankful for all those years of tree climbing. Rolled up, the cloth could sit very happy at the highest point of the roof just next to the smoke hole and…

The door opened. "What are you doing?"

Her arms slipped from the wood, and she landed hard on the floor with the taste of sheep still in her mouth. "Ouch." She sat up, rubbing her elbow.

"Are you okay?" Fishlegs asked, offering his hand.

Oh, why not? She took his hand and let him help her up. "The roof is really high." Wow, what a dumb thing to say.

He smiled like he had actually done something clever. "I see you found your yarn."

She held up the cloth. "I found it three days ago."

The smile faded. "Oh."

"Not bad, though. You're trying. You get credit for that. But in the grand scheme of things, it was no where near good enough."

He seemed to still be processing the movement of the yarn. "So… you were putting them back every day?"

"You catch on quick, don't you?"

"Why would you put them back?"

She shrugged. "I don't think I have to have a long drawn-out reason for my actions. For some bizarre reason you put the yarn up there even though I needed it for my own personal sufferings. So I figured I'd let you feel good about yourself and so I put them back and I could laugh at you behind your back and… wow, this is a long drawn-out reason and I think I'll shut up now."

Fishlegs nodded. "Okay."

And there ensued another awkward pause.

"I'm kind of tired," she finally said.

"You're always tired. You sleep more than anyone I've ever known. It's really weird and even though it's crazy I'm beginning to think that maybe you were bitten by some-" He screamed and jumped a good foot back. "There's something in the bed!"

She looked back innocently. The blanket moved along with the kitten. "What?"

But Fishlegs was all but hyperventilating. "I saw its tail! It's like a wolf or something!"

She put on her best terrified face. "Well, do something about it!"

"Like what?"

"How should I know? You're the one that saw it."

After a few more moments of panicking he snatched a sword from the wall and clutched it close to him. Then he slowly made his way toward the bed.

Ruff held back a laugh. He was such an idiot, holding the sword like it was a shield, seriously thinking there was a "wolf or something" in the bed. This was something to watch.

Then the kitten's head poked out.

Fishlegs screamed again and dropped the sword. "What's that?"

"A kitten." She strolled past Fishlegs and picked up the kitten. "My father gave her to us. For mice."

"Isn't that what dragons are for?" he managed to say as he gasped for breath.

"I'm not letting a dragon in here."

* * *

_Note: The kitten truly is a late arrival. Just barely found the information. Apparently a kitten was a common bridal gift. So… kitten! Yay! By the way, the Viking kitten was probably not your normal kitten. It was possibly the Norwegian Forest Cat—domesticated. _


	13. Fishlegs' Defeats

Fishlegs was amazed at how quickly the awkwardness dissipated. Only a month had passed since the wedding before the last weirdness of being in that house with Ruffnut was gone. Everything then fell into a rhythm of life that did not seem so out of step in the ways of Berk. Which was good, because as much as Fishlegs craved excitement he loved concord even more and a nice, easy flow of life where nothing was expected from him. Morning would come, he would daydream while building and sawing and carving, he would hang around with his friends, and he would go back to the little house to find Ruffnut out cold half the time and already exhausted the rest. He finally and grudgingly accepted it as her trying to avoid anything to do with him, but that acceptance too became part of the rhythm. She could fall asleep and he could do all the little things that she would have mocked him for such as reading or writing down all the new stats he had gathered due to closer observation of dragons. In the morning they would speak about nothing in particular.

Yes, the awkwardness was gone. Now it was just the norm. The really, really weird norm.

He was not sure what he was supposed to think of it. It wasn't like he had ever really seen a marriage, and it wasn't like he had wanted anything to do with Ruffnut in the first place and it was more and more obvious that she hated him. Like the night with the moon. She had come out for a couple of minutes at best before flying back into the house like nothing was worse than being near him. It had not even been worth her time to make fun of the notebook a little more. And trying to hide her yarn and now the beginnings of messy cloth had been a disaster. What had be been thinking, trying to upstage a Thorston? But maybe this was how it went for everyone else. How was he supposed to know? The thing was that it had been awhile since he and Ruff had tried to kill each other and he was grateful enough for that.

Perhaps he should feel grateful. Ruff was, after all, insane. Now the only time he had to see that was in the mornings when she was trying to be conversational—conversation being her weird and rude comments that made no sense and didn't allow for any real response. Oh, growing up he had always found her and what she said rather funny. Now it was a different story altogether. Now she was just plain annoying. And the less he saw of it, the better. And the further it went from trying to kill each other, the better.

Annoying was now the normal. It was no longer awkward. It was annoying.

He could handle this life. He was good at adapting. Adapting was different than accepting change, and he could do the former very well. It wasn't like Ruffnut was demanding anything of him, and she seemed to be doing fine. The place was clean. Her cooking was still pretty bad and she complained about the weaving, but she was doing them. She had even begun clearing out a little patch of ground she said not only rid the world of ugly plants but would be a garden in the springtime. She did everything she was supposed to and he soon let go of his fears that he would wake up to find her with a knife pressed against his throat. No, she hated him too much for that.

So that was their norm and it started defining weeks. He could accept this norm, but he didn't always have to like it. What had his dad been thinking? Everyone who knew him and Ruff said it was weird. Snotlout still laughed about it like it was actually funny and if Fishlegs had the nerve to pound him for that he would have. Snotlout wasn't the one who had a crazy wife who was repulsed by him and no idea what do with her.

Though sometimes all he wanted to do was something that would drive her ever so nuts. He was not sure where that desire came from. But it was there and there was something about the very thought of Ruffnut that set it off. Except he couldn't annoy her. Well, he could, but apparently only by his presence and he had yet to get any joy out of that. She was the queen of irritation and he had known that for years. If he had really been smart he would have spent those years in observation of everything she did. He would have gathered her stats, her weaknesses and strengths, and he would have learned just where to hit her to score the best defeat possible. Now was a very late time to start. Already she was in control, with that dragon of hers and now the kitten. Fishlegs had never had a problem with cats, but there was something about this particular kitten that was pure Thorston. Pure evil. He could tell it in the way she purred menacingly and sunk her tiny claws into his leg every chance she got. Catch mice? Hah. Kisa, as Ruff had called her, would be ready to kill in a few months. Full on kill. And who would be Kisa's first victim? If he were wise, he would protect himself now and do something with the kitten.

Except every time he picked up Kisa she would purr with all the villainy of a full-grown Monstrous Nightmare and lick his nose. And her fur was soft. Who was he kidding? What could he possibly do to a little kitten?

But that defeat annoyed him all the more. Then he would think reasonably about it and realize he had never acted this way before the wedding and there was no good reason to start now. And that would increase the power of the felt annoyance.

Late one cold morning he was returning to the village, dragging the trunk of a tree he had felled. Large pine, all sappy bark scraped from it. He was plenty proud of it. And most men would have had a dragon pull it, but the trunk wasn't that big and sometimes it just felt good to use his own strength. Not everyone could yank a tree down the hill. And it was his tree and his project and he would cut it into boards and use it for the coolest project ever, though he hadn't decided what that would be yet. But it would be awesome when it was done, that was for sure.

And then he saw it.

The Hideous Zipple-back had avoided being dragged into any chores that day by Tuffnut, who according to Fishlegs' calculations was on the day to have the Zipple-back. It snoozed under a tree near grazing sheep who no longer held a healthy fear of dragons. Maybe it was a little close to his mistress' new house for that particular day, but at least he wasn't bothering the Gronckle—wherever she was.

Fishlegs dropped the rope and stared at the dragon. Yes, it was Ruff and Tuff's Zipple-back, all right. The one that hated him and felt the need to threaten and growl every time he came in sight. The largest of all the dragons, exotic, a respective threat. A Hideous Zipple-back still remained something of a prize.

Fishlegs smiled. All he had to do was get it lost. Well, lost being a relative term and all. The Zipple-back was smart, it would find its own way back in under a day, being boringly tame and all. But all he needed was to hide it long enough to upset Tuff who would then come yelling at Ruff… which would actually be entirely normal for them but after that would come this moment of panic when they realized the other had not taken the dragon.

Oh, it would be good. And if the Zipple-back still had something against him, it would make luring the beast even better. Fishlegs made his way across the hillside, laughing to himself.

"Hey, Zipple-back." He had never perfected talking at dragons the way Hiccup had, but maybe this was the time to be bad about it. Annoy it. What was the best insult one could give a Hideous Zipple-back? "Your maximum flight velocity lags behind other dragons. Except the Gronckle." He cringed. Why did he put that in there?

One head awoke, eyes latching onto him.

Fishlegs felt an uncontrollable shiver of fear, but he could move past it. Just a dragon. "Two cerebellums do you no good."

The other head awoke. Good. Here it was. Now he just had to make the dragon chase him somewhere off for a few hours until Ruff had her good scare and…

The Hideous Zipple-back lumbered to its feet, snarling. Wow, this thing really had it out for him.

Fishlegs took a step back. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. He hadn't been thinking clearly and it was unnaturally cold that day and that might have affected his sinuses which would have affected his brain. And what was he rambling about? He could handle a Zipple-back just fine. Now just where did he intend to lead it?

Both heads stared down at him. Both heads, looking very cranky, very anti-Fishlegs, with mouths open wide…

He turned and ran.

Now, that had been part of the plan. Sort of. Run into the woods because woods were great for hiding dragons. Everyone knew that now. Except he found himself running not towards the tree line but right back toward the village with a dragon that had been trained against him on his heels. Wrong way, he tried to tell himself. Wrong way. But now he was in that panic mode that went down every time he became the least bit excited and thinking was out of the question altogether.

"Loose dragon!" someone screamed.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see a few amused faces. Because now dragons were cute and tame and loveable and therefore incapable of the mass destruction they had once been feared for. Great. Even the person who had called out didn't sound unduly terrified. Berk, like its sheep, had lost all respect for dragons and what they could do.

He fell against the side of a house just as the click of dragon sparks filled the air along with that awful green gas.

WHOOSH!

Fishlegs closed his eyes against the sudden wave of heat, though none of it touched his skin. But the heat remained, above him, crackling happily in the cold autumn air. He opened his eyes. He had just pulled a Hiccup even though they weren't supposed to use that terminology anymore.

The roof of his own house was on fire. And the Zipple-back sat back like it was ready for a treat for a job well done.

"You idiot!" a voice called. Moments later a fist collided into his arm. Ruff. Of course. Of course she had seen that because his life just happened to work that way. Freezing water splashed everywhere as she chucked the contents of the water jug at the burning patch of roof.

His heart skipped a beat. "You weren't in the house—"

"No, you big oaf, I was getting water like I'm supposed to and I come back to see you messing with my dragon and teasing it and making it chase you across here to light the place on fire. Now I have to go back for water. Or you should."

He nodded. "I could get buckets…"

"Oh, forget it. It'll be done anyway."

As it was, every other onlooker was tossing water and dirt onto the roof and the flames had already reduced themselves to a small stubborn orange petal that clung to the middle of a rather blackened corner of wood. Okay, so the dragons weren't aiming to kill or destroy anything anymore. The dragons were just trying to be as annoying as Ruff.

Who chose to stomp on his foot while he stared at someone lazily toss a few cupfuls of water onto the roof to sizzle out the last of the fire. "Ow! What was that for?"

"Trying to burn down the house, moron. Are you really that slow? I saw the whole thing."

Obviously. And she probably would have seen him lead the Zipple-back into the woods and laughed at him for that. Probably would have made the dragon set a circle of fire around him. "I didn't burn down the house. Your dragon did."

"He's not my dragon today. And I saw everything. You were teasing him. Why would you tease a poor defenseless dragon?" She was angry with him. He could see that much in her eyes. Angry Ruff was not good.

"Defenseless?" He shook his head and pointed at the dragon, who was now hungrily watching the sheep. "You've taught that thing to attack me, haven't you?"

A grin slipped through the fury. "So what if I have? Can't you take a joke?" She was right up in his face now, glaring and sneering and yelling…

A red-hot dizziness swam into his brain, but he shook it away. "That thing wants to kill me."

"A few blasts of fire and you're convinced anything wants to kill you!"

"You're the one who—" He took a deep breath. People who had stopped to watch the roof incident were still around, still watching. "Let's take this inside."

Her eyes flashed. "Let's."

"All I want to know is why you trained your dragon to hate me." It was the first thing Fishlegs said as soon as the door was closed behind them. "I just think it's ridiculous to…"

Ruff yanked a sword from the wall.

He groaned. And they had gone so long since the last one. And she wasn't even thinking. It wasn't one of her swords. It was the new sword from the wedding. That was supposed to be his. "Ruffnut, what are you doing?"

"You're so stupid!" She turned, sword held up. "Trying to burn down this house and teasing a dragon when I thought you were all weirdly obsessed with dragons."

"That doesn't answer my question. Why do you have a sword?"

"Because I like to slash things that annoy me." She made a few swings through the air.

"Point taken." He shouldn't be in this. What had he done to deserve this? "Um, I'm sorry about the dragon and I'm sorry about the roof."

"I thought you're the one that built the roof. Of course you're sorry about it. And I don't care about the roof. I care about you being stupid enough to try to burn something down and I care about you teasing my dragon."

"Your dragon started it!" That was a lie as far as today was concerned. "Weeks ago. And you started that."

"Oh, get over it." Ruff swung the sword closer. "I'm the one that has to go all the way back up to get water."

"But now you're just playing with a sword."

"Playing?" she shrieked. "You think I'm playing?" The blade cut up through the air and then cut back down.

Maybe he should get one… No, no, he was not going to fight her. She would have way too much if he fought back and he was not going to give her the pleasure. He crossed his arms over his chest and tried to look brave. Except she was coming closer and she was still yelling and…

She stopped, sword above her head, chest heaving as she panted. "You're… you're not going to do anything?"

He shook his head. He still did not feel particularly brave.

Then her eyes narrowed and she lifted the sword again.

Did she never stop? He grabbed her wrists before she had time to swing and pulled the sword from her hands. It was surprisingly easy.

"Hey!" She tried to grab the sword back.

"No."

For a moment she did nothing, just breathed deeply and stared at the sword. Then she jumped up onto him in a weird attempt to climb his arm and take back the sword that was technically supposed to be his. "Give it back!"

"Get another sword!" Probably not the wisest thing to say, but she didn't hear him and he was still stuck with this crazy girl in one arm and a sword in the other. And she was vicious. He didn't know how much longer he had before he would be on the ground.

But in the middle of trying to force his fingers open she stopped. He took the opportunity to throw the sword to the opposite side of the room. It actually wound up stabbing the bed frame in a perfect place for her to take it, but she just slipped back to the floor.

"Ruff?" he said nervously.

She looked a little green. "I'll be right back." Then she slowly walked out the door.

Uh oh. He hadn't done something, had he? Though he couldn't think of anything he could have done to make her…

The sound of unmistakable retching came through the wall.

…sick.

Ruff did not come back for the sword. She came back in to say she was fine and that she was going back for more water that had better not have to be used on some roof. He went back to the log he had left ignored outside, though for the life of him he had no idea what to do with it. Even the idea that whatever it was would be awesome had fled his mind.

The girl was crazy. And there was nothing he could do to annoy her. All the little ideas of jibes and insults that were only half-formed in his mind meant nothing when he walked back into the house hours later to find her, of course, asleep.

All the more annoying. She looked so innocent when she was asleep.

* * *

He awoke suddenly in the middle of the night. Which was odd for him. He normally slept great and nothing could wake him up. But here he was staring up at the dark ceiling and the wisps of his own breath.

It was freezing.

He glanced around the room, taking in signs. The fire was out and only a few coals glowed. And through the smoke hole and the window he saw something else: white fluffy flakes pounding down hard in an early snowfall.

Okay, those happened from time to time, and he certainly did not have to deal with it in the middle of the night. There were extra furs somewhere. Under the bed. He could start the fire again and pull out those blankets and deal with the snow in the morning. Nothing big.

Except he couldn't move his right arm. He couldn't even feel it. Just numbness with the sensation of pins and needles through his hand. He jerked his shoulder in an attempt to get some more feeling just as his eyes adjusted to the darkness.

Ruff's arms were wrapped tightly around his upper arm.

For a long time he stared at her, his heart pounding. She was fast asleep, breathing softly, braids everywhere. She did look innocent when she slept, he had been right about that. Except now she was sucking all the heat from his brachial artery and his arm was more asleep than she was.

"Ruff," he said quietly.

No response. He would have to try louder. But then he would wake her up. He reached with his other hand and tried to pull her arms off. But she just squeezed tighter. He choked back the yelp of pain and waited for her to loosen her grip to how it had been before. It took a few minutes. Or long seconds. He couldn't be sure. But at last she relaxed.

Maybe he could shake her off. He clenched his teeth and tried to move his arm through the horrible sensation of pins and needles that now shot through his whole arm. He twisted and shrugged and waited for grip to fail, but she held on fast, her breathing not even changing.

At last he stopped. Another admittance of defeat. Was it so much to want his arm back? Apparently. Well, he couldn't move to build the fire without taking her along with him, so he leaned to the edge of the bed and tried to grab the fur blankets he hoped were there.

Leaning half-off the bed didn't make her let go, either.

He was pretty sure he was about to lose his other arm when his fingertips managed to grab the edge of something furry that wasn't a kitten, and he pulled the expanse of fur onto the bed and smoothed it out as best he could with one hand. It wasn't the neatest action, and he had to give Ruff credit for sleeping deeper than he did. And for having a monstrous grip that her arms just didn't show.

Her eyelashes were surprisingly long. He almost wanted to touch them. But that would be weird.

He sighed and closed his eyes. It was going to be a cold and long night. Now her knees were in his side.


	14. Astrid's News

Astrid was at the door, cheeks red with the cold, snowflakes clinging to her hair and a smile taking over her face.

Ruff hated smiles at the moment. The house was way too hot while it was way too cold outside and the contrast left with the odd sensation of being in too places at once and her brain just wasn't built to handle that kind of thing. She took a moment to absorb the chill of Berk winter. Already she could feel her mucus freezing. "Hi."

That too perky smile went even wider. Since when did Astrid smile like some idiot six-year-old? "It's done."

"What's done?" Okay, way too much cold in her face. "Do you want to come inside?"

"Yes, please." Astrid all but tumbled through the door in a mess of snow that set to melting in puddles with each footstep. She cast off a pile of snowy furs and took a minute to stretch her arms. "It's freezing out there!"

By all means the scene should have been charming. The snow had started one night and hadn't stopped in days. Typical of Berk. At least the harvests had been brought in, albeit the last of it in a chionophobic rush that had involved lots of screaming and swearing and fighting. But it was in and all was well and even if the snow didn't melt away for a last taste of fall Berk was ready. There was nothing wrong with appreciating the white softness that now defined the island and the grey sea that surrounded it. But the fact was that Ruff was not ready to hole up for the winter and felt that killing something brutally was the only thing that would make her feel better. Snow was just too calm and peaceful. Ruff shut the door before any snow could make its way in. Another supposedly charming scene of a cozy house with a roaring fire. Too hot in here.

"Isn't the snow gorgeous?" Astrid's voice practically sung as she wiped snow from her braid.

"You know I hate winter. It's cold and you can't do anything."

"Sure you can. You have this nice display of weapons and you can wander up to Meade Hall and start a fight like you always do. It's your tradition. Every winter it's the same thing. Sooner or later you climb your way through the snow with a knife clenched in your teeth and attack some poor soul who was minding his own business. And then you blame it on Tuffnut but someone not involved mishears and next thing we all know there's broken bones and someone's unconscious."

Ruff smiled. Ah, yes. Good times. That hadn't happened yet this season. "But that's one burst of activity. Otherwise its indoors. All the time. And it's freezing. And before it was Tuff in my face and now its Fishlegs who thinks I'm crazy or something."

"I thought you were crazy," said Astrid. "And proud of it."

"Nah, I think he's mad at me for some reason." Ruff sunk into a chair. Now her head hurt. "Like, I can't even get him to fight me. I thought guys liked that kind of thing. Fighting. I mean, I like fighting. I'm good at it. I can take a few hits and I can totally deliver them. Guys are the crazy ones." She sighed and looked over as Astrid, who stood watching, nodding sympathetically while that insipid grin still remained.

"Oh," said Ruff. "You had something to say. Something was done."

Astrid nodded. Boy, but could those big eyes shine. "I'm getting married!"

"Oh." Ruff stood up from the table. "To who? Hiccup?"

"No, your brother. What a catch. Of course Hiccup! Who else?"

"Oh." Third one of the conversation. "I'll be right back." She quickly crossed the floor, opened the door, and bent over in the snow in a wave of nausea.

"Haha, very funny, Ruff!" Astrid called from the doorway.

Nothing came up, probably because her throat was now frozen. She stared into the snow until the dizziness had passed, then stood up. The chill air felt good on her skin.

"I thought you liked Hiccup," said Astrid as Ruff re-entered the house. "That display was a little insulting."

"I do like Hiccup. And I'm thrilled for you. I just didn't feel well." She returned to the chair and lay her head down on the table.

"I see." The awkward silent that always accompanied Astrid and her changing emotions. "Anything I can do?"

Ruff fought the urge to laugh. "No." Now a nice person would ask Astrid all sorts of girly questions about how she felt about this. Okay, she could do that. "So when did this happen?"

"This morning!" Astrid dropped into the other chair. "I was getting ready and my parents told me it was all arranged, which is good because I've been dropping hints. So, yes, I'm getting married. I am no longer the old maid of this village."

Ruff nodded. "So… what does Hiccup think of this?"

"I have no idea." She spoke with delight.

"Does he even know yet?"

"I have no idea." Even more delight.

Ruff sighed and lifted her head. "What happened to the old Astrid? The one that was pathetically all work and no play?"

"Oh, she's still there," Astrid replied more calmly. "But now there's nothing to fight and I got a boyfriend and now this." She shrugged. "I guess the energy has to go somewhere."

"Yeah. Because you're perfect at everything." It sounded more bitter than she felt. It had supposed to come as some sort of compliment.

"Ruff, will you please stop saying that. It's not true and you're awesome."

She didn't feel very awesome. "I just wanted to say I'm happy for you."

"Thanks. I hoped you'd be. You can be so weird about things sometimes." She put a hand to Ruff's forehead, and Ruff jerked away. "Maybe you should lie down."

"I don't want to lie down. All I do is sleep anymore and you know I never sleep."

"Maybe you are sick."

Ruff momentarily considered telling Astrid her suspicions, but decided against it. The girl was getting married to the dorky boy she adored and didn't need to hear any of that. "I'm fine." She glanced at the raging fire. "I need to go get firewood."

"Okay. Sounds good." Astrid stood up. "I have other people I want to tell."

"Before you've discussed this with Hiccup?"

"Knowing him he'll probably freak out if I looked at him right now. Bye."

Ruff grabbed the axe and a coat and followed Astrid out the door.

The woodpile kept at the back of the house was not much to brag about, just as Ruff had suspected. The snowfall was not hard, merely a constant downwards of drift white stuff that clung to every inch of her. The sky was a solid block of clouds and her footsteps were silent in the powder. She liked the weight of the axe in her hand. It was smaller, used just for wood, but she imagined it could improvise very nicely as a weapon. Maybe she should find Tuffnut. He would be more than happy to get in a fight with her. Unless their mother had said something to him and then he wouldn't even come near her because Tuff was unbelievably weird that way.

The woods, in her opinion, looked a heck of a lot nicer than the snowy village. Woods were cool. Dark, exciting, like some monster or troll would pop out from behind a tree at any given moment. Now that would be interesting. Cool, even. She missed the days of dragons and arenas so much that it was not even funny. All Berk needed was one good attack from some barbaric enemy and all would be well. Yes, one good attack for old time's sake that would make more use of an axe than a dead tree would. Axe. How would axe sound as part of a terrifying name? She swung back and let the blade of the axe fall into the trunk of the most ugly tree she could find. The sound of metal against wood was deafening in the winter air, and the echoes must have gone clear to the shore. Her fingers were numb, she had completely forgotten about mittens, but a Viking could handle that. In what seemed no time at all she had a good amount of impressive logs lying in the snow. Firewood. Now chopping firewood was so much more fun than many other things.

She bent down to scoop up the smallest of the logs. She yanked it into her arms with a grunt before it threw her backwards right into the snow. Okay, embarrassing. And that was the small one. Maybe she had chopped a little too broadly. And now her fingers felt like icicles.

Fishlegs was easy to find. Carving. The entire carpentry shop was a fog of sawdust. She had never bothered going there, but here she was about to make the most embarrassing request of her life. She had just found himself incapable of carrying logs down a hill.

He dropped the saw in his hands when he saw her. "Ruff?"

Hopefully he wouldn't think she was crazy or weak for this. "I need help."

"Why didn't you just chop them up smaller?" he asked as they trudged up the hill.

"Because it's cold and my hands are freezing and that would just mean all the more trips back up the hills," she snapped back. "Besides, shouldn't it be your job to carry heavy stuff. You're strong. Or we could freeze to death. Would that be your choice?"

"Well, you'd be fine," he muttered under his breath.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing. So this is them?" He stopped in front of the wood pile she had created, former trees now dusted with snow.

"There's more down that way," she said, pointing.

"How many trees did you destroy here?"

Like anyone paid attention to that. "I don't know."

He gingerly kicked one of the logs. "You didn't chop this one up at all."

"Any idiot can chop up a piece of wood, Fishlegs." She tried to ignore the obvious sight of wood that was too big for anyone her size.

He nodded, though what he was nodding about she had no idea. "Where's the axe? I'm so not lugging that thing down."

"The axe is…" Her voice trailed off as she looked around for the telltale sign of metal, failed to see it, and realized she had absolutely no idea where she had last put it. "I don't know. Just carry it."

He gave her that look that once more declared he thought her crazy. "Um, did you do this on purpose?"

"What on purpose?"

"Chop down some wood to make me come up here and carry it?"

"Why would I do that? I just noticed we were almost out of firewood and I chopped down some I couldn't carry down. It's not a big deal. Growing up Tuffnut always carried it."

"Just asking," he said quietly. He walked around the log, talking to himself about how an axe would really be useful. "All right, could you at least help me carry it?"

Odin, he was probably now thinking she some ditzy little girl up here. He had seen her in action before! How dare he think she couldn't carry something as insignificant as wood. She rolled her eyes with an "of course" attitude and gripped one end of the log.

"All right," Fishlegs said. "On the count of three. One, two, three!"

Ruff's frozen fingers slid right from the edge of the log as the other end lifted up with Fishlegs' pull and knocked him right back into the snow. "Ouch."

Something came over her at that moment, almost a primal instinct. Here was an innocent, momentarily powerless victim lying prone on his back in the snow with a giant hunk of wood on top of him. Without thinking her numb hands shot down into the snow and crushed together a snowball. The powder wasn't the best for the art, but she had years of winter practice. Before Fishlegs even had time realize where he was the snow was heaved right into his face.

In an instant he had pushed the log away. "What was that for?"

But Ruff was already making the next projectile. Bigger, with little bits of icicle in it. It was a thing of beauty. She chucked it at Fishlegs, who was still climbing to his feet with a very confused look on his face. Like she had never thrown a snowball at him. She was pretty sure she had last winter. Multiple snowballs. He had been an easy target and she had pretty respectable aim. She hit him again in the face and was just starting on the third snowball when the sensation of a bough's worth of snowfall struck her face.

She dropped her half-formed snowball and looked up, coughing, to find Fishlegs gathering up more snow in his massive arms. He wasn't even forming them into the balls. His plan was to simply toss snow at her, lots and lots of snow. Quick and effective. She swore under her breath and gathered up what was left her snowball. Speed. She was going to have to roll balls faster than she ever had before.

She managed to get one whizzing through the air before the next wave of snow came at her face. Whiteness blinded her, and the only satisfaction came from the sound of her snowball making target. Hah. She could throw blindfolded no matter what anyone said. This was proof! She wiped the snow from her eyes and went for the next snowball, eyes squeezed tight against the waves of snow that pounded against her. Well, this would be an ice weapon of disaster. Maybe a few pieces of bark thrown in for good measure.

The snowball was destroyed early. It slipped from her hands as Fishlegs pushed her down into the snow. How had she ever let him get this close? Well, he had been cheating, not using snowballs.

"I win," he said simply.

"Not yet." With her free arm she twisted around for a handful of snow and smashed it into his face.

He sat back, sputtering, as she lay where she was, laughing. The look on his face was too priceless.

"So much for firewood."

"Oh, you're still going to be taking it down." Ruff tried to form another snowball, but at that point her fingers all but refused to move. "Okay, truce until I get my fingers moving again." She brought them to her mouth for warm breath.

"You didn't wear anything on your hands?" His voice was uncharacteristically loud. "What were you thinking?"

"I know what frostbite looks like, moron. I live here."

"I can't believe you went chopping wood without mittens. That's like the most dangerous thing you can do. I mean, if your hands froze and became ice…" He seemed rather fascinated by the idea. "Here, take mine."

"I could use yours for a hat." Still, she slipped them on. Her hands drowned in them. "These are going to fall right off. They're not going to warm my hands."

"Just try them. And now we can get back to moving this giant thing you call firewood." He grabbed his end of the log again.

She sighed and took her place. "These mittens are just going to catch on the bark and slip off. They're not going to work."

"Just be quiet about the mittens for a moment and get ready to lift."

"The mittens were your idea." But she grabbed her end. The grip was at least better, though for all she knew her hands would pop right out.

"One, two, three!"

And up went the log and for a minute everything was fine.

Until Fishlegs slipped. Once more, down went the log.

"Graceful," Ruff said.

"Please don't throw a snowball at me," he said.

"Fine." She dropped the one she had been making. "We'll try again."

Fishlegs didn't respond.

"Hello, I thought we would try again?" she called.

He bit his lip. "I… I think I did something to my ankle."

"You big baby." She walked around the log to his end. "Please tell me you didn't break it."

He seemed more surprise than in pain. "I think I just twisted it."

"Oh, the big bad Viking twisted his ankle. I'm telling everyone. Can you get up?"

He considered it for a moment, nodded, then shakily stood up. "I probably shouldn't walk on it. That can make worse, I hear."

"So can lying in the snow for hours. Tell you what, I won't make you carry anything."

"So I did come up here for no reason. Ruff, what if I slip again and break it?" There was terror in voice.

She laughed and, without thinking, kissed him on the cheek. "Just don't slip."

"What was that for?"

She had no idea. "Being an idiot about this. I'll look at your ankle back at the house, even though I think you're just being stupid about this."

"I'm going to need help," he insisted. "You're not supposed to move injuries—"

Oh boy. She turned on her best glare. "Fishlegs, you're like three times my size. I'm not helping you down the hill. That's physically impossible."

He locked eyes with her, and for a moment it seemed he was going to say something but had no idea what to say. "All right. But if I slip it could twist ligaments and maybe even tear them and—"

She put a hand to his mouth. "Shut up."

He got down the hill just fine.


	15. Circular Conversations

Fishlegs had the feeling that Ruffnut did not believe him about his ankle. True, he had never actually done anything to his ankle in memory, but it did kind of hurt and it did not feel like he was sure ankles were supposed to feel. And he was pretty sure he was correct on not moving injuries and he was going to remember that no matter what face Ruffnut made and how much she was probably laughing on the inside. But the more he expanded on the ankle with every medical fact he knew the more she laughed and taunted. On the outside so he could hear it. Like she did not even care. He decided he didn't like Ruffnut laughing at and taunting him. It made him feel like what she had called him, a big baby, and that was not a fun thing to feel like. He had a fair reputation for being tough and he was just going to have to suck up the pain, stop spouting facts, and pretend to stop worrying about his stupid ankle. So it hurt to walk on. But not that much and he could walk on it. Big deal. Maybe he was overreacting. He was able to get down the hill without his right leg giving way under him. Though it did hurt. A little. Not that much. But Ruffnut did not seem to care or believe him. As they made their way back to the house, he found himself wishing and hoping he had done something downright terrible to his ankle and then she would be sorry.

Though somehow he doubted she would feel as much. Curses.

"I think we may have just wasted an entire day," Ruffnut said as she slammed the door behind them. "And it's all your fault."

They had both managed to track an entire blizzard's worth of snow into the house, and it now had set itself to melting all over the floor for Kisa to lick up. Now what if he wound up slipping on that and getting hurt? No, he had to stop thinking like that. He tried to shake the paranoia away, having no desire to act life Tuffnut with his whiney ways.

But the whininess just came out. He was spending too much time around her.

"How's it my fault?" Fishlegs' voice sounded angrier and whinier than he thought he felt, though at this point it was difficult to sort through his feelings. "You're kind of the one that started it. Did we need firewood?" The fire was burning quite happily in its pit, the only warmth in the entire house. And here he had been thinking they had been down to nothing.

She shrugged and began pulling off her furs. She was so skinny under them. "Well, there's not a lot out there in back. Obviously someone had to restock it."

"And that wound up being me." He lowered himself into a chair, thinking about much more useful this day could have been if he had just stayed at the carpentry shop.

She rolled her eyes. "Obviously. Why do you think I hiked all the way down to get you?"

"Because you can't chop wood?" He so much wanted it stated as a mere impersonal face. But she was going to flip out. Why had he said that?

"I can't carry heavy wood," she explained tersely. "Excuse me for admitting that you are freakishly so much stronger than I am. Aren't you guys supposed to go all wild over that? Over thinking girls think they are so strong or whatever?"

Like he would know. He had never really thought about it. He shook his head and wondered why this was all going on. This was supposed to be about wood. Nothing more than wood. "So I guess I'm the one that has to go back up and get all that wood that we left up there to rot?"

"I imagine someone else will come along and steal it before that happens, actually," she said thoughtfully. "I mean, I would. If I were walking in the woods and I found a pile of perfectly good firewood and no on actively defending it that I couldn't take out. Wouldn't you?"

Stealing wood. He supposed one could argue that it was saving wood that would otherwise rot in the snow. It was there for the taking. It was… communing with nature. Or something. But after all the hassle of someone chopping it down and then finding it gone… "Isn't that kind of dishonest?"

"Oh, who cares about that? Morals smorals. We're Vikings."

"So you don't care if someone takes that wood that you yourself chopped?" His hands suddenly hurt. Great. Warmth from the fire after he had given her his mittens. "But you can't carry firewood even if you went up there to steal someone else's." He expected her to hit him for that even though she had already admitted it but it was impossible to tell how she would react here.

"Which is why I went and got you." She busied herself folding the still snowy furs. Actually folding them and putting them away neatly. Was that a girl thing? It certainly didn't strike him as a Ruffnut thing. Though apparently she had been doing it since the snow had started, now that he thought about it. She was unexpectedly organized.

He noticed that. Why did he have to be so agreeable? "Which is why we have no firewood out back right now and why this conversation is going in a circle and becoming meaningless." He pulled the boot off his right foot in order to study his ankle. Okay, it didn't seem that swollen. Maybe she was right. He wasn't used to the idea of Ruffnut being right.

He felt her eyes on him. Oh, but she could stare. "Oh, yeah!" Her voice was almost too delighted. "Your foot! I forgot all about that. Are you still bellyaching about that?"

He worked up the most defensive voice he could manage. "I fell on it pretty hard."

"I know, I saw, you really should get over it." But she settled down in front of him and ran her hands over his ankle with surprisingly forcefulness. "Did it make any funny sounds when you fell on it?"

Viking or no Viking, it was all he could do not to scream. This hurt worse than getting mauled by a dragon probably would feel. Maybe. He hadn't actually heard any statistics to that effect, but who cared? "I don't know! I wasn't listening for my ankle to make sounds!"

"Huh," she said, leaning back. "Look at that. I guess you really did do something to your ankle. Sorry I made fun of you." She didn't sound particularly apologetic. "I think you actually broke it. I mean, just a fracture somewhere. No bones gaping through the skin, but I think you may have broken a bone in there somewhere."

He felt a rather satisfying wave of vindication. "I told you."

"No, you said you twisted it and then I was all whatever and saying I hope you didn't break it. I guess I was right. Hah."

"I don't think this is a laughing matter, Ruff."

"It is for me, I'm not the one with a broken ankle." She locked eyes with him and frowned. "You're not going to be a baby about this, are you? Because that would just give me more reason to laugh at you, you realize."

It struck him that this was the most she had said to him in a long time. It was rather weird. "You… just told me I have a broken ankle. What am I supposed to do about that?" Though he knew that broken ankles and other bones weren't that uncommon and were not big deals at all and it was probably only a tiny fracture on some bone somewhere. "And how do you know all this?"

She jumped to her feet, made her way to her chest, and began tearing on old green shirt into strips. "Please, it's me and I grew up with Tuffnut. Basic first aid is a necessary part of life. You think I haven't broken my ankle at least five times? Think I haven't smashed someone's ankle on purpose?"

"I guess that makes sense." Though he wasn't sure he wanted her doing whatever she was about to do with those strips of old cloth. Ruff might now some medical care, but he didn't think he trusted her. She was, well, crazy. "I think I'll be fine, though. I was able to walk back here just fine. I'm just going to go back to the shop and…"

"It's going to start swelling soon now that we're out of the snow." She approached him again, cloth pulled tight between her hands and a crazy look on her face. "I'll just wrap it up and then you'll be free to do whatever you want."

He stood up quickly. Really, it didn't hurt that much. He had been totally overreacting and if he hadn't freaked out about stupid medical things he had heard that were probably lies she wouldn't be about to… operate or something on him right now. Yeah, that's all she needed. A knife to slice him open.

"Fishlegs, sit down." The crazy look had been replaced by the scariest growl he had ever heard from her.

He found himself sitting down. No. He could take her, he could keep her from doing anything to him, he could stand up to her. But no. He had to sit down all over again. And the moment he was back in the chair she was in power with wrapping those strips around his ankle with all the force of which she was capable.

"Don't you dare say I'm hurting you." She tied it with a fierce jerk that made him wince. "There. All done. And you handled it so much better than Tuffnut did the last time he crushed his foot and I had to take care of it. Good job."

His foot still hurt. "Thanks. I guess."

"Now let's go get the firewood." Her hand actually brushed the pile of furs.

The last thing he wanted to do. It must have showed on his face, because she just laughed. "I'm kidding."

"Oh. Okay." This had been such a weird day. "So…. We're not going to get it? You kind of lost the axe up there."

"We'll find it in the spring," she said nonchalantly. "Unless someone steals it."

"That's going to be a long time. How will we get wood before then?" She didn't laugh. She just stared at him like he was an idiot. Great. That was the last time he would try to joke with her. Maybe it just wasn't a very good joke.

"I guess we can just freeze to death." She sighed and collapsed into the other chair. "Why are we even having this conversation? It's really stupid and boring. I'm sorry I wasn't able to get firewood on my own. That sucks for me, too. No need to go on and on about it. For crying out loud."

She had just completely switched moods on him. It was all he could do not to stare, and it was with great effort he pulled his eyes away from her. "Um…"

"You're the one that was saying it was an unending conversation or something. And then you go and start it again. We never talk about anything and now you want to talk about this." She traced a pattern on the tabletop with her finger. "It's really boring."

The conversation Fishlegs had with Tuffnut weeks ago sprang back into mind. The conversation about having conversations with Ruffnut. Oh boy. It was happening. Right at this moment. And it was a pointless conversation. "I think you started it."

"No I didn't!" The tracing turned into a fist pounding that sent the table shaking.

"You were the first one to start talking when we got back here." He regretted it the moment he said it, but saying useless truths was something of a reaction for him. He didn't know what else to do.

"And you responded. You should not have responded. That makes it all your fault."

Had Tuffnut seriously thought she enjoyed talking to people? She seemed mad. Maybe he should just ignore her and stop talking. Then it would end, maybe, and they could go back to pretty much ignoring each other. But no, he could feel the next useless fact welling up inside his throat… "But you're the one that went to get the wood in the first place!"

She stood up and crossed the room to where Kisa continued to lap up the snowmelt. "This is a really stupid conversation and I'm right about that." She picked up the kitten.

She was right. It was a stupid conversation. He remained where he was, watching Ruff pace the floor as she petted the cat. He could not read her face. Then again, he had never been able to read her face or had ever even thought about reading her face. The crackle of the fire became deafening, and it suddenly hit him that this was the longest they had been in the same room with absolutely nothing to do. Well, that could be fixed. He could leave. He could get a book or something. He could… paint something.

Except she was right there, pacing the floor, holding her stupid cat. And the moment he moved he was certain her eyes would be on him and he wasn't sure if he could handle that.

But he was going to crazy just sitting there. He took a deep breath and spoke. "Well, what do you want to talk about?" Did she even want to talk? How was he supposed to know when she wanted to talk?

She looked at him with a sneer. "Did I say I wanted to talk about anything?"

Just as he feared. He had blown it. "No. But do you?"

"I don't know." She shrugged as she petted Kisa. She was so… girly... with that animal. It was not what he expected from Ruff. She shrugged again, like something was bothering her. "Well, there's something…"

What had he just gotten himself into? An actual conversation with her? Was he prepared for this? He tried to look interested and non-terrified. "What?"

She bit her lip and hugged the kitten closer to her. "It's… nothing. Never mind."

Good. Nothing to talk about there. And now it was back to the two of them in this little space not doing anything when they probably should be doing something.

Ruff sighed and walked back over to the table, kitten still in tow. "Can we just both agree that this whole thing is really weird?"

Never mind. She did want to talk. To his surprise he felt relief. Things were logical. Okay, he could manage that. This could work. Maybe it would make her less nuts. Or maybe it would be an even nuttier conversation. He took a deep breath. "What whole thing?"

She shot him a glare. 'This whole marriage thing. Duh."

"Oh." He clutched the table. "How are you defining weird?"

It was as if something had snapped inside of her. "I don't want to be defining anything right now!" She dropped the kitten onto the table. "You want to talk about something? We'll talk about this. I don't even think you like me. I think you think I'm crazy. So that just makes everything weird for me and I have to live with it." With the final words she had snatched back up Kisa for a hug. Her eyes were… he couldn't decide how to describe her eyes.

The room was quiet after that. Painfully quiet.

"I like you just fine." He said it louder than he intended it.

She continued to glare. "But you think I'm crazy." The line was loaded with venom.

He hesitated too long.

"See?" She threw her arms in the air, kitten clutched in one hand. "You think I'm crazy."

She was certainly acting so. "Everyone thinks you're crazy. Is that bad?"

She sighed and shook her head, once more calm, as calm as Ruffnut could get. "No, but you're all weird about it. You won't even fight me."

Fight her? He was supposed to be fighting her? "Because that's crazy."

"But you like me." She dropped back into the chair, eyes frozen on his. It was unnerving. "You're not mad at me?"

He scooted the chair closer to the table. "Why would I be mad at you?"

"I don't know. I thought you didn't like me."

"But I already told you I like you just fine."

She paused to think. How often did she pause to think? Did she think? But at last she spoke. "So is it weird, then?"

"The marriage?" He shrugged. Yes, it was all-out bizarre. "Kind of. But I like you. You're interesting and you're kind of pretty." Wow. He had just given her a compliment.

Yet her face was unreadable. Just the new blank Ruff-was-thinking expression. "Oh. Good to know. I like you, too."

She said it just like that. No particular emotion, but frank honesty just the same.

He fought back a smile. "You've said that before." Hadn't she kissed him back up on the hill?

"I just hate running a house and cooking and all that. It's boring."

He really had no response to that. What was he supposed to say when it was what she had been doing for all this time and they were sitting in that very house and everything looked perfectly fine? "Well, what else do you do in the winter?"

She shrugged. "Things. Want to play a game? That's a winter thing I would do and I think you have a tafl board somewhere in all your junk." She jumped up and dumped Kisa into his lap as she made her way over to start tearing through his stuff. "Here it is."

"But what if the fire goes out?" Another attempt at a joke.

She scowled, then threw the board at his head with impressive force, though he managed to dodge it. "Okay! Never mind, then!"

"We're playing a game," she insisted as she marched to the table. "It's better than sitting around staring at each other all the time."

He nodded. He got it. No more bringing up the firewood. He put that out of mind and let Ruff set up the game on the table. He wasn't sure she even knew how to play, but she set into the game with all the crazy versions of the rules she could make up. And that was fine. As long as she didn't freak out. So he let her get away with everything and eventually win. Four whole games.

Why not? It made her happy.

And she had a nice smile when she was happy.


	16. Forms of Fighting

He liked her. Three little words that meant a surprising amount of much, so much Ruffnut could not quite wrap her brain around the amount. Was it supposed to be so important to her? Were those three words supposed to pop up without warning into her thoughts like this? What about the more specific alternate phrase of "Fishlegs liked her"?

She had rarely been in the position of someone liking her.

Ruffnut had never much cared for words. They were great for insults and arguing and driving people bonkers, but she had never paid much attention to the meaning of them. Doing so would be just getting too deep. So why did she keep thinking about it? Fishlegs had been cornered when he had said, what was it? That he liked her just fine? She had been about to jump down his throat at the time. He would have said anything to protect himself.

Then again, it wasn't necessarily "just anything" he had said. There was no reason to assume he had lied to her. There was a difference between thinking someone was crazy and hating that someone. So even if he was weirdly offish all the time and did everything in his power to avoid her he could still like her. And he had participated in a snowball fight with her. That meant "I like you" in her book.

And so the end result was that he liked her and had no near-future plans of killing her, though she doubted he was the murdering type even if she were crazy enough to warrant it. (She could just see Fishlegs trying to murder someone and it was a fairly entertaining fantasy.) He liked her. He had told her so. And it was probably a good thing that he liked her and she liked him all right because it was preferably to being trapped in a house with someone she despised. All right. So he liked her. That was good to know. It would sure make life easier. There. That was all there was to it.

So why did she keep thinking about it as the days passed? Why could she go for hours thinking about a thousand other things and then be attacked by that concluded fact? She would be in the middle of weaving a hideous and misshapen piece of cloth and that thought would hit her. Then it would go away as she dug at what she hoped to turn into a garden and then while she was throwing things at the hibernating dragons she would think of it all over again.

It was all very weird.

It wasn't like anything changed. They kept their individuals routines with the limited chit-chat and she was still falling asleep at a ridiculously early hour, so there was never any possibility of evening conversation or anything. Everything was… good. Astrid had now the attention of anyone in the village who cared about upcoming weddings and she was enjoying it thoroughly. Good for her and her happiness and for taking all attention away from Ruff. The timing was perfect.

The early snow melted away, leaving Berk dead and covered in mud. In a way it made things easier, and the most final of final winter preparations could be finished. Soon all the blizzards of the north could attack Berk for a solid year and they would be fine. But it made the island downright ugly and Ruffnut did not like looking at ugly things. That was already covered by her need to throw up once a day. Her future garden was as ugly as it could get and besides trekking up everyday for stupid water she saw no real reason to be outside.

Because there was nothing left to kill or fight and no one to fight with. Berk was boring, boring, boring. And then winter would come for real and everything would become even more boring, boring, boring. A fourth boring would be added. And the only thing adding anything to her life was the idea that some guy liked her. It was odd, but not consuming enough.

Maybe she should be positive, she thought one day as she headed back to the house with water. The villages weren't freezing yet, and she could take in the entire dead and brown landscape with the idea it was the setting for some horror story that did not quite yet have a plot. She walked next to Astrid, who still wore the stupid glow of I'm-getting-married!

Ruffnut still wasn't sure if Hiccup knew about any of it yet.

"Isn't it a gorgeous day?" Astrid asked as some remaining idiot bird cried overhead as it flew over the grey sky. "Just this morning I managed to repair my family's roof. Bring on the snow!"

"You have such a weird taste in gorgeous," Ruff muttered. She had felt sick and dizzy all day and she could barely carry a jug of water. "Can't we just shoot down that stupid bird? Now that would be fun."

"It would be fun." The line ended there as they reached the stretch of houses. "Except I sort of put away those things."

Ruffnut rolled her eyes. What was Astrid becoming? Why would Astrid have her prized bow locked up for winter already? What if deer came out in the next few months? "You? Astrid? Putting away weapons?"

"Organization, Ruff. Try it."

"Try killing something. That's fun." Now a wind that was decidedly not a breeze had picked up. Another detail for a horror story. Now it just needed a ghost or something. And of course Astrid would decided it was a breeze. A pleasant little spring breeze.

"Hiccup's father has made sure we have plenty of meat," Astrid said. There she was, praising Hiccup's family. "And if there's a problem, I'll be the first one out there on the hunt."

This stupid jug was so heavy. Had she overfilled it? How could she overfill a jug? Wasn't the idea to fill it? But she couldn't say anything to Astrid, now with Astrid as lovey-dovey as she was. Besides, Ruff had always felt a secret rivalry with her. The other tough girl. She gritted her teeth and pretended the jug wasn't so heavy. She was not going to resort to spilling it so Astrid could delight over a pretty little stream going through the dreary Berk soil. "So you're saying no little hunting party, just us two?"

Astrid paused and studied her thoughtfully. "If you want to go hunting, we can go hunting. Or sparring. Whatever you want."

Ruffnut sighed. The jug felt even heavier when she was stopped. "Never mind," she snapped.

Which was followed by a very random thought of Fishlegs liking her.

In the names of all the gods that ever bothered with them, why was she thinking about that? She pushed it away. "Sorry. Weird day."

But Astrid was still being entirely caring and worrying. She had that… that Astrid face. "Are you still sick?"

In a matter of speaking. Ruffnut shrugged. "Sort of. Fighting would help."

"You could challenge them," Astrid said as she resumed walking. "Your brother and Snotlout, right up ahead."

And indeed they were. Two guys she knew she could take (though perhaps not together) crouched on the side of Snotlout's house snickering over something that was probably stupid. Perfect.

"Double team?" she asked Astrid. Astrid hadn't become boring enough to pass up a fight, had she? "Keep your skills together?"

Astrid set down her jug, smiling that dark smile she did whenever she was about to make something dangerously serious. "Sure. You've talked me into it."

The jug was a pleasure to set down. She was getting exhausted even earlier in the day. A fight would get the blood back to boiling. She picked up a rock and tossed it right at Tuffnut's head.

The reaction was a few seconds in coming, but once the stunning wore off he was looking around, face scrunched up in pain and a hand on his head. "Ow! What was that for?"

She already had another rock in hand, tossing it up and down as she sneered at her brother. "Oops. I thought you were the rear end of some deadly creature."

Snotlout laughed. "Good one, Ruff!"

"Thanks." She chucked the second rock into his arm as Astrid laughed.

Snotlout's own laughing ended abruptly. His eyes narrowed and he made a sound that was actually a snarl, of all things. "Hey!" He charged forward, but only made it a few steps before Tuffnut grabbed his arm.

"Dude! Let me at her! If she bruised my bicep I ought to—"

"I'll be happy to bruise the other one!" Ruffnut called. Now this was fun.

But Tuffnut just shook his head. "Leave her alone."

"But…" Snotlout had never been good at being told what to do. "But she threw a rock at your head! You might have brain damage now! A concussion! And you're just going to take that?"

Ruffnut cackled. "Astrid and me against you two. Right now."

"Oh, we'll take Astrid," Tuffnut said. "Right now she has no weapon and I bet she's nothing without a weapon."

"Wanna bet?" said Astrid.

"I would love to test my skills against you," Snotlout said to her with a smile that made Ruffnut wonder if he had heard about the arrangement. "And I'll go easy."

"Yeah." Tuffnut rubbed his hands together and grinned. "And Ruff can referee."

Ruffnut stared at him in realization. Their mother. She must have said something to Tuffnut and now there was no way he was ever going to wrestle with her again. Damn her. Why did she have to be so smart and right about these things?

"Oh, fine. Whatever." She picked up her jug, water sloshing everywhere, and marched toward the house. All the stupid mud squelched under her feet and now she would have to clean her boots.

"Ruff!" Astrid called after her.

Ruff ignored her.

At least Fishlegs liked her. That was one happy thought that lasted all of a second and then she was back to being miserable and moody.

When she was in the house, the slammed the door shut and all but dropped the jug to the floor. It was probably significantly less heavy than it had been. She then dropped herself into a chair and took a deep breath. Feeling sick was not a good combination for being irritated with people for not wanting to get in a fight with her. Would Astrid try to be all sensitive and comforting or take a hint and leave her alone?

Minutes ticked by, and there was no sign of Astrid. Good.

It was almost nice, just sitting there staring at a room. Part of her mind was scrutinizing it, searching for details, things she could do. Nothing, at least nothing important. Things were clean, the last hideous thing had been removed from the loom, and all the weapons had been sharpened. She was free. She couldn't very well be beating anyone up, but there were other things she could do. In here. She wasn't sure what, but there had to be something better than humiliating herself by stepping back outside where Astrid was probably waiting in the shadows.

Somehow she found herself crossing the room to Fishlegs' bookshelf. Books. She had never had much use for them, but he seemed to like them plenty. They did look nice on the shelf, very organized and official and neat. She pulled down a few titles and stared at the covers. _Sharks and Other Great Pets _and _Rock Types of Berk. _What freaks of the Vikings before them had written such things? Yet she sat on the floor with the rock book where somebody long dead had gone on and on about volcanic formations.

She must have read for a good hour before she realized it was deadly boring. She slammed the book shut and briefly wondered what was in the shark book. Had the book been bound with shark skin? That would be cool. It was such a thick volume. Weight like that could be used for something more than reading material.

Like a tower. A nice big book tower. Did Fishlegs have enough books to make a decent one? By the looks of the shelves he did. She pulled out the thickest books she could find and arranged them for a nice base.

No. A tower was too simple. Any kid could build one. A book fort. Yes. That would be the thing to build. Make a nice big thing of protection.

As it turned out books were an ideal building material. They were sturdy, a good shape, and could be altered by lying them open and flat even if that did tend to tear a few pages.

The fort was impressive, for the first fort she had built entirely out of books. She sat the last book top center of it, imagining that book to be a scary statue, and stepped back to examine her work. Granted, it wasn't very tall—even Fishlegs didn't have that many books, but it was a decent fort on the miniature scale. She had even managed to put a few trapdoors in it for sliding a weapon out of. The opening and closing nature of books made that possible.

Of course it left her dead tired. Darn.

She had kind of wanted to see Fishlegs' face when he saw it.

* * *

Calls outside awoke her, in one of those fuzzy slow ways where at first she wasn't sure if she weren't dreaming what she was hearing. But the calls were there in reality, similar to the din of the former days of dragon attacks except not nearly so panicky. She groaned and tried to sit up. Except doing so meant unwrapping her arms from… Fishlegs' arm? Had she rolled over there in the night? She moved herself away from him as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

"What's going on?" Fishlegs mumbled as he pushed away the covers.

The fire was nearly out, but there were people outside talking… not quite in shouts, but in loud voices. So it couldn't be an emergency. She found herself wondering instead what Fishlegs had thought of the book fort.

"I dunno," she said with a yawn. "Some party?"

"Parties are so…" He didn't seem to find a derogatory word for them. Instead he yawned as well.

"That's because you were probably never invited to any," she mumbled.

"Hmm." He didn't seem to have comprehended her. "I'll go find out."

He wasn't gone long, but the bed was so warm and the surrounding air so cold that she was almost asleep by the time he reopened the door. "Raid."

"Raid?" That woke her up. Raids, from other humans, was fairly standard in Viking life, but ever since dragon taming had come in vogue Berk hadn't been bothered quite as much except by the ignorant and people who thought it would be fun to go against dragons. And even so human raids had never been a big deal.

"Yeah. Just a small boat of pirates, all at the shore. There's already people and dragons down there, nothing major, so…"

"So what?" She sprung from the bed. A raid. A good old-fashioned raid. She grabbed a strip of ribbon and pulled her hair up. "Let's go."

In the dim light she could see him grin. "Um, okay. Sure."

The raiding party was quite pathetic, by the looks of things. Ruffnut could see the shadowy form of their ship out beyond the harbor—growing considerably less shadowy as a Monstrous Nightmare breathed fire all over it. The docks and shore were busy with fighting, but already she could see it was what all human-based fights had become since the dragons: her tribe bullying some poor tribeless barbarians.

It was loads of fun.

She ran down the hill toward the action, a knife clenched in her teeth. Already she was wondering just what she dared let herself do. But to be out in it, that would almost be enough. Her feelings of the day proved she was craving a good fight. The light of the torches, the shouts and laughs of the people, the cold wind cutting through it all.

There didn't seem to be many of these particular raiders. Either the majority of them had already been struck dead or they really had no idea what they were getting into and had sorely misjudged party size. Still, there seemed to be enough to make everything interesting, the whole even worth coming down to. She twisted through the brawls and shouting groups, taking it all in. Destruction, blood, the pure joy of beating to a pulp a raiding smaller significantly smaller in numbers… Yes, Vikings really were bullies and she loved it.

She saw some of the raiders, stringy-haired folk she had never seen before. She saw them putting up their fights, gnashing their teeth and flailing about their own weapons only to get struck down over and over while their ship burned in the back. A voice she assumed to be their leader's called instructions, but Stoick's booming voice nearly drowned it out.

If she could just stab one of them, give them a good scarring cut across the face, then she would be happy.

And it was not long before she locked eyes with one of them. Tall, but skinny. Probably strong enough, but nothing she couldn't handle. She smiled. This was the fight she should have had with Tuff and Snotlout.

Speak of the devil, Snotlout was actually barreling down the shoreline toward them with an axe raised, but she could get him first. She could do this without any strain before Snotlout could even get close. She rose her knife.

It fell from her hand as he head was jerked backwards. She gasped and flung her hands back to her attacker's hands as she realized what had happened. That stupid knot in her hair. He had driven a knife right through it and now one hand was gripping her upper arm and this had to be the worst hairstyle ever.

"Look at this pretty little thing," her unseen attacker whispered.

She could feel the coolness of the knife against her scalp. She growled and tried to twist away, but he held her tight.

And Snotlout, the idiot, was too busy taking care of the skinny guy she was supposed to take down.

Her attacker pulled her back, and her feet struggled to keep up. Around her what had seemed like average Berk bullying was a lot more chaotic. But the man moved fast, and it wasn't long before she stumbled.

"Clumsy!" The man laughed, then threw her to the ground. She landed hard, hands folded over her stomach. He lifted his own knife.

She shut her eyes.

Then the man screamed.

Her eyes snapped open to see the said knife sticking from the man's shoulder as his arms were twisted behind his back by… Fishlegs. As she watched, Fishlegs had the man in air and landing about ten feet away on the hard wood of the docks.

Good timing. She shook as she stood up. "Wow. Thanks. I—"

He didn't pay attention to her. He didn't look at her. He didn't seem aware she was anywhere around. Instead, his stare was everywhere else. In the firelight his eyes were pink where they should have been white. A moment later he was tearing off into the fight.

She crossed her arms back over her stomach. He was berserking. Only explanation. She had almost forgotten he did that. Well, this was as fine a time as any other for that, though now that some guy wasn't dragging her around by the hair she had to wonder if this whole thing was worth a berserker rage. Already almost all Berk participants were cheering and egging on the last few ones still locked in brawls. A few of the raiding party were beating the flames from their ship. Yes, Berk was obviously about to win this interruption of the night and Fishlegs had felt the need to berserk. It was kind of an overreaction.

In fact, she could see him then, throwing himself into those last few brawls on the shore. All of them at once. She had to admit it was pretty fun to watch. A few last suckers left to suffer while their ship struggled off with dragons in pursuit. They probably hadn't expected a few dragons to be yet resisting hibernation. Well, now her Fishlegs was making them suffer.

Suffer a lot.

She wasn't sure just where the last two stood on the life and death spectrum when a few men tried to pull Fishlegs back. But he was deep in the rage. He shot his elbow back, breaking a nose and knocking someone else to the ground before pounding a fist into a raider's face.

"Someone stop him!" Stoick called from the crowd. He began to push his way threw.

But Fishlegs wasn't calming down. Blind raging violence was going through him and from the look on his face it was going to explode onto anyone near him. It shouldn't have been a big deal. Fishlegs was just one guy, barely above a kid, surrounded by all the brawny Vikings of Berk. But apparently he could put up a fight.

"It's over!" came the shouted demands. "Calm down!" All vain efforts against a possible inner-tribe fight.

Ruffnut pushed through the crowd, losing sight of Fishlegs but hearing the tussle just the same and it sounded like Fishlegs was winning. She made her way to the center of it just in time to see Fishlegs, eyes now entirely red, throwing Hork and Hiccup to the ground. Well, Hiccup would obviously be easy to beat up but she would have thought Hiccup would have been able to say something to him. Geeze, Hiccup was useless. And Astrid wanted to marry him?

"Fishlegs!" she said loudly.

He didn't seem to hear her. Of course. What was she supposed to do? Did they all expect her to deal with him just because she was the wife? Fantastic. She edged around till she was behind him, then leapt onto his neck and held on with all effort she had. "It's over," she whispered into his ear.

He tried to throw her off, but there wasn't as much energy in it.

"It's over," she repeated in the same whisper. "Not a big deal. Just a few lousy raiders. We're all fine and now you're making an ass of yourself."

He twisted, and tried to throw her off again. She dropped to the ground and dug her fingers into his arm. "Calm down, you moron."

"Mm." For a few long moments all energy seemed to drain from him. Then he shook his head and sunk to his knees. "What?"

Hiccup was still rubbing his side. "I think he's good, Ruff. Except I'll now have a bruise."

She shot him a dirty look and turned back to Fishlegs, who was rubbing his eyes that were making their ways back to a normal color. "What was that all about?"

He shrugged and looked around. A few were grumbling and staring at him, but the rest seemed to want to clean up and see if any sleep could be salvaged for the night. "What happened?"

"You went berserk. For a pathetic little raiding party. Really impressive," she finished sarcastically. "Don't you remember?"

He shook his head. "Could… could you let go of my arm?"

She still had her nails stabbing him. She let go. "Sorry."

He climbed unsteadily to his feet, still shaking his head. "The last thing I remember is seeing that guy pulling a knife at you…"

"Oh." She wasn't sure what she was supposed to take from that, but it felt oddly good to hear. Was this another example of him liking her? "I could have handled that. No problem."

Fishlegs switched to nodding, though he still looked bewildered. "The other thing I remember is you trashing all of my books."

So he had seen the fort. And she had missed it.

"I think I'm supposed to be mad at you." He sounded dazed.

"Well, you just embarrassed me and yourself in front of half the village," she said, pulling at his arm. "We're just going to take you home."


	17. Happy Birthday Ruff

_Yes, this is not the Tantrum from the books, but then again, who is? We liked the name. The bog-roses are as they were described in the books. Happy?_

_

* * *

_

"So I guess Astrid wants to do something tomorrow." Hiccup did not seem sure of whatever Astrid's instructions were supposed to be by the way his gaze kept wandering the workroom and his voice lacked confidence of any sort.

Fishlegs looked up from the beam he was sawing and tried not to sneeze on sawdust. Any quick movement of the head in the shop tended to draw sawdust right into the nose. "You guess? Shouldn't you be a little more specific?"

"About what?" Still no confidence, still no eye contact from Hiccup.

"Because I have no idea what you're talking about and I bet Astrid would be a lot more specific in her instructions." Whoa. Too many words in too long a sentence and Fishlegs could no longer hold back the sneeze. And the sneeze was loud enough to kick up another cloud of sawdust. "Sorry."

Hiccup sighed and rolled his eyes. "I'm not going to be specific because whenever anyone is specific and certain about something chaos rears its ugly head and any and all plans go right out the window. I'm just repeating what Astrid said. She wants to do something tomorrow."

Something. Fishlegs sneezed again. Something wasn't good. Something meant plans. Social plans. And while he loved plans and order and things to be trusted he had never understood social plans. They were not his thing and he wasn't good with them. His childhood had been spent not quite on the sidelines but not in anything particularly resembling active participation. And now plans were being made and since he was being told about them there was a good chance he was involved against his will. "Um, what kind of something?"

Hiccup shrugged. His attention was now on the beam. He was probably drawing mental sketches of inventions involving it, if he were being Hiccup. "Honestly, I have no idea. Ever since this whole betrothal was announced she's been… well, she's been nuts."

"Exactly when did you find out about that?"

"Four days ago. Apparently my dad forgot he had never mentioned it to me. His excuse was pure "Oops. Sorry. Figured you would figure it out." That's my life." He shrugged again, this time with something of a grin on his face.

He would grin over something like that, Fishlegs thought. Astrid was at least tolerable. Not crazy.

"Picnic, I'm theorizing," Hiccup continued.

"A picnic?" Fishlegs did not like the sound of that.

"Maybe. It could be something else. Like I said, Astrid is now nuts. She could change her mind at any time. But she thinks it would be fun to do something before it snows again and she says she hasn't gone hiking in a long time and Tuffnut is coming with a girl and…" He shook his head. "Hey, I'm just the messenger."

"Uh huh," Fishlegs mumbled as he tried to process just what these plans of Astrid meant. It sounded like… Oh, Thor. "A date? A triple date?"

"I guess so." The grin vanished from Hiccup's face to be replaced by pure horror. "Oh, gods. Sorry. I think she would have dragged Snotlout in except he says he's… training or something. I think he just had the momentary intelligence to avoid it at all class. That, or he couldn't get a girl. She thinks it would be fun for the twins' birthday."

The chisel fell from Fishlegs' hand and clattered to the floor, nearly missing his foot. "It's Ruff's birthday tomorrow?" Maybe he shouldn't sound so surprised.

"You didn't know?" Hiccup's grin was back.

"I didn't know I was supposed to know!" Fishlegs could hear himself beginning to panic. Here was a critical piece of information that was way too late in coming and he had no idea what to do with it. "I don't memorize every birthday in the village!"

"Neither do I. I'm just saying she's your wife now and apparently girls like people knowing about their birthdays."

"She didn't say anything."

Hiccup considered that. "I don't think any of them do. Some bizarre rule to make life miserable. I only knew because Astrid said so. She's smart that way. So are you in?"

"In what?" Fishlegs was too busy trying to figure what he was supposed to think about this birthday news to comprehend anything else.

"This thing. For tomorrow. The triple date."

"Oh." That was just as terrifying as the birthday concept. "Yeah. Sure. I guess. With… Ruff?"

"That's the general idea," Hiccup said.

"Oh." Fishlegs nodded. "Okay. Tomorrow."

It was nearly impossible to get back into work, and the next thing he knew the wood beam had a very large dent chipped out of it.

He had never been on a date, he realized. Apparently he had been ready to get married off without doing anything involving dating.

* * *

Finding a birthday present for a girl was a tricky thing, especially a girl like Ruffnut. And selecting gifts had never come easy to Fishlegs. Fortunately Viking culture tended to frown on gift-giving the majority of the time, but females were so weird that way, at least from Fishlegs' limited experience, and he just did not dare take any chances with Ruffnut. Though the fact that he was trying to come up with a gift was risk enough. It was going to go horribly wrong and he would be left thinking he shouldn't have bothered in the first place. But then if he didn't do something birthday related then the fact that he didn't would be horribly wrong and the whole thing was a terrifying and paradoxical predicament. Maybe Ruff wouldn't even remember it was her birthday or maybe Hiccup and Astrid had it wrong and Ruff would be demanding what in the name of Odin's bloody one eye he was thinking.

But she was, as was common, asleep by the time he arrived home, the kitten curled up on her and once again no covers. Well, he was used to that. He pulled the blankets over her and the kitten as he tried to decide just what he was supposed to do for a gift. Maybe if she were awake he could ask her. That would make things so much easier. But she was out cold.

He lay down next to her and tried to think. What did she like? Fighting. Okay. Maybe he could find some sort of weapon to give her though it was a little late to be looking into that. And if he did give her a weapon she might attack him with it. It was extremely likely she would attack with him it, just to test it out or some other weird thought. Maybe he could carve her something. He liked carving and he could get something finished during the night. Except his mind drew a blank at what to carve. He took a deep breath. It was just a gift. Some knick-knack. Something to say that he knew about his wife's birthday even if she hadn't said anything because apparently that was what he should do. And he was okay with it. He was happy to get her a gift, in fact. Because he did like her and she deserved something for her birthday. It didn't have to be much. Just something. Flowers. Yes, that was it. Why hadn't he thought of it before? Girls liked flowers. At least, he thought they did. And Ruff was a girl so maybe she liked flowers. Statistically, it was probable.

Except Berk had already suffered one early snowstorm. Which meant there weren't too many flowers left. Then again, this was Berk and flora tended to be pretty tough. There had to be something.

He stood up from the bed, grabbed a lantern, and left the house. There was still some light from the sunset as he headed off into the trees, and the lantern did its job. Except everything looked rather dead. He couldn't very well bring back something dead. It would defeat the purpose of flowers.

The next thing he knew the sun had completely set and he was out on a rather chilly night looking for remaining blooming flowers for reasons other than scientific. How had he stooped to this level?

But another hour soon passed and another one began and he began to lose orientation of where the village was. And still no flowers in sight. If his dragon weren't hibernating he would train her to hunt flowers. Which would make him the laughing stock of the village, but it would be so much more convenient than this.

He was about to get intentionally lost for a day or two and therefore have an excuse to not get a gift or go on this picnic thing when the lantern beam fell across it. A half-dead brambly patch with a few living things still growing from it. Bog-roses. It was a miracle from the gods. And there were a good number of them, too, all reasonably healthy looking, a nice and proper shade of brown or however brown looked in the dark.

"Yes!" he called out. He set down the lantern and ran towards the patch.

And suddenly found himself waist-deep in freezing and smelly water where something instantly began nipping at his leg.

The etymology of bog-roses was based on their proximity to bogs. How had he forgotten that?

Swear words spewing out of his mouth, he waded through the water to the roses and grabbed all he could. There. Five had to be a sufficient bouquet. He raised them above his head and struggled toward solid and dry ground. The freezing water really made his foot hurt all over again.

Now he just had to make it back before the lantern flickered out.

It was the dead of night by the time he made it back to the village. Even the most wild drunks had beat him back. He envied them. He was freezing, wet, and dead tired. It was all he could do to toss the bog-roses on the table before collapsing onto the bed.

Birthdays were such a pain.

He was almost asleep when Ruffnut stirred and did her subconscious nighttime habit of squeezing all the blood from his upper arm. But he was too tired to care.

* * *

"How did you know it was my birthday?"

Fishlegs opened his eyes to the foggy image of Ruffnut staring down at him. Had she said something? His shoulder felt funny. "Huh?"

"My birthday." She pointed to the roses, which were now in a chipped jar and a more distinct brown that he remembered. "The roses are for my birthday, I assume. How did you know? I never said anything."

He rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He was still tired. Weak sunlight streamed through the window and smoke hole. How late was it? "Your birthday?" He tried to remember. "Astrid said something?"

"Hm." She nodded. "I see. As long as it wasn't Tuffnut. Well, thank-you. I didn't think there were any flowers still alive. Should have suspected the bog-roses even though they're a weird color and smell funny. But thank-you." There was a long pause, and then she kissed him on the cheek. "And sorry for punching you in the shoulder. But you needed to wake up."

He tried to decide how to reconcile the kiss and the punch. "You punched me?"

"Yeah. How else to wake you up? Dump water on you? That would only mean more work for me." She began tying up her hair. "We're doing something with Astrid, by the way. And Hiccup. And Tuff."

"Yeah." He stood up. "I heard."

"Oh. Okay. Then let's go." She clapped her hands together, then headed to the door.

So she knew about this? Of course she would. Girls. And she was already heading out the door and he was barely awake. "What about breakfast?" He couldn't go anywhere without eating first.

She half-opened the door and sighed. "Fishlegs, it's a picnic! We'll eat there!"

"So you didn't eat anything?"

"I had ginger tea. Happy? You want more than me?"

"But—"

"For crying out loud, there's bread on the table! Let's go!"

It was her birthday and she was scary. He grabbed a hunk of bread and followed her out the door.

It didn't look like the ideal day for a picnic. The weak sunlight was already fading as rainclouds hovered at the edge of the sky and the wind was a few degrees above a breeze. But apparently a picnic was the plan for the day, even with a group that proved to be the most awkward thing Fishlegs had ever seen. And he had seen a lot of awkward in his life.

Astrid and Hiccup seemed the most comfortable of the group, though Hiccup seemed attuned to the surrounding awkwardness. Then there was Fishlegs and Ruffnut and all that meant. And then there was Tuffnut, who didn't seem all that happy about turning seventeen or the girl that was attending him. Her name was Tantrum and she was one of the weirder girls in Berk. Top ten, if Fishlegs was thinking correctly. She had red hair that was far too curly and bushy and blue eyes that were rather large and an obsession with rocks. And fish, though her father was a fisherman so maybe it was just a topic she was forced to know about. He hated to admit it, but he was probably more compatible with Tantrum than anyone in the village.

"There's a lot of great samples of andesite around her," Tantrum commented as the awkward little group made its way through the woods to wherever Astrid had designated as their destination. "They're all buried right now, but sometimes they pop up, especially after earthquakes. There was an earthquake about a week ago. I think I was the only that felt it. It was very small. I was in sitting still in one spot looking at some basalt when it happened. Have you ever felt an earthquake, Tuffnut?" She batted those giant blue eyes at him.

"No," he said quickly.

"Oh. Well, have you ever seen any of the andesite samples around here? Or scoria? You strike me as a scoria type of guy. There's a wide range of rocks around here due to the fact that it's an island in an area where a lot of plates have been shifting and moving all sorts of elements around plus whatever the magma was created from…"

"What kind of rock guy am I, Tantrum?" Fishlegs asked, torn between genuine curiosity in the rocks and horrified curiosity if he were ever this annoying.

She paused in her walk, and Tuffnut crashed right into her. Not that she seemed to notice during her thinking. "Diorite. And Ruffnut is chalcedony and Hiccup is sandstone and Astrid is quartzite."

"Why, thank-you!" Astrid said from far ahead, while Hiccup mumbled something about why he had to be sandstone.

"Just keep moving, Tantrum," Tuffnut muttered.

"Of course." She resumed walking. "And I changed yours, Tuffnut. You're going to be tuff. Because it's your name and it's a rock. It's just appropriate." She giggled.

Tuffnut groaned.

"And Snotlout is obsidian." She sighed. "He's so attractive. I wish he were here."

"We can run back and snag him if you want," Ruffnut said, jabbing a thumb back down the trail.

Tantrum shook her head. "No, that's fine. Tuff is really cute, too. Just not as cute as Snotlout, but I'm so happy to be here."

Fishlegs tried to focus on the trees and the approaching rain and even the sound of the dead leaves under their feet, but Tuffnut quickly caught up with him.

"She ruined my nickname," he hissed. "She ruined it. Now I'm named after a rock."

"Rocks are cool," Fishlegs replied, trying not to let Tantrum hear. Or Ruff, who might blab it to Tantrum.

"Not from her!"

"Why is she here, anyway?"

"My parents pretty much made me take her."

"Oh no. You're not…"

Tuffnut made a face. "I hope not. They haven't said anything like that. But if they're telling me to take her on a date then maybe they're considering it and I have to make this go badly. But how do I make this go badly so she'll hate me? I mean, it's me. She can't help herself. No girl can."

Tantrum was chattering away about rocks to Ruffnut, who wasn't listening, by the neutral sound of her "uh huhs".

"She could resist you if Snotlout were here," Fishlegs said.

"Oh, yeah. She's been obsessed with him for months. She makes him treats and gives him rocks and stuff." Tuffnut sighed. "But he's not here."

No, he wasn't. Oh well. Fishlegs sighed. "Happy birthday, by the way."

"It's not happy so far."

Tantrum then addressed everyone in a much a louder voice. "So my dad caught this gigantic Icelandic cod yesterday. And guess what?"

"What?" Tuffnut asked in a voice that suggested he wanted to kill her.

"Inside the fish was a knife. It had actually swallowed a knife. And there was also what we all are really positive was a human eyeball. I'm serious. I didn't think cod ate humans, but this suggests something must have happened. Like a sailor had to fight the cod with the knife but it took his eyes…"

Astrid and Hiccup stopped in a clearing that Fishlegs had either never seen before or was not interesting enough to remember. There were lots of bare trees, lots of dead leaves, and a giant boulder in the middle of it that was a fantastic conglomerate, according to Tantrum. The picnic consisted of bread, berries, and dried Icelandic cod.

"So nobody wants any fish?" Hiccup asked as he bit into it.

"It's really good," Astrid put in. "I rubbed all these spices into it before drying it. Sage."

Tantrum let out a slightly hysterical giggle, and Tuffnut buried his face in his hands.

"I guess us four aren't that hungry for fish," Ruffnut said. She seemed to be choking back a laugh.

Fishlegs elbowed her. _Don't_ he mouthed.

She grinned back at him.

"What?" Hiccup asked as he took another bite of fish.

"Nothing," Fishlegs said quickly. "I'm just not hungry for fish right now."

"Or eyeballs," said Tuffnut. He exchanged a subtle high five with Ruffnut.

Tantrum giggled again. "Or knives."

Hiccup seemed less pleased with his fish, and Astrid narrowed her eyes. "This took some time to put together."

Fishlegs quickly grabbed a piece of bread and bit into it. "The bread's really good."

"No offense to your food, Astrid," Ruffnut said. "But I really can't eat anything right now. It's me, not you."

"Some picnic," Tuffnut said dryly as he reached for some berries.

"It would be more fun it the dragons weren't hibernating," said Astrid. "We should do that sometime. In the spring. Wouldn't that be great?"

Then, without rhyme or reason, she leaned over and kissed Hiccup, who then kissed her back. Nothing terribly disgusting or juicy, but did the rest of them really have to watch them kiss?

"I'm having fun," she said as she sat back, blushing.

"So am I," said Hiccup, who was also blushing.

"You're so cute!" Tantrum seemed the only one impressed. Her eyes shown and everything. She probably imagined herself doing the same thing with Snotlout. Or Tuffnut.

Astrid and Hiccup were by then holding hands in a position where they most likely thought no one could see them holding hands and they weren't just holding hands but doing a weird finger rubbing thing.

Ruffnut drove her elbow into Fishlegs' side and made a gagging motion when he turned to look at her.

Choking back a laugh with bread in one's mouth led to real choking.

"Are you okay?" Astrid and Hiccup asked in unison.

He shook his head, then nodded, then managed to say something about needing a drink of water from the stream even though they had brought water. They had spoke at the same time and said the same thing and now he was probably going to die.

"I'll come, too," Ruffnut said quickly, standing up.

The water helped a little, and the stream was hidden in the trees so he could cough and laugh until he could breathe properly. Ruffnut just laughed.

"Oh Frigg!" she exclaimed. "No wonder we all had to come. We're all here to keep her virginity intact or something."

"They were just holding hands." Hooray for breath, but the laughing kept stealing it. "And speaking at the same time. For some reason I found that really funny."

"Fishlegs, that was not just holding hands. That was intense handholding. And so secretive. They're carrying on a hand affair."

"And they manage to keep it so clandestine despite being around four other people."

She gasped for breath after a few more laughs, enough for further speaking. "I'm not going to ask what clandestine means because I like the sound of it too much. Poor Tuff and Tantrum. We shouldn't have left them back there."

"And leave Astrid and Hiccup to themselves?" he asked as he bent down for another drink of water. There seemed to still be a piece of bread lodged in his throat somewhere.

"Fishlegs, I really don't want that image in my head. And I don't want Tantrum here. She's annoying. But wow!" Her voice rose an octave. "Oh, Hiccup! Please eat this fish I made! It's so yummy and romantic!"

Losing that much oxygen from coughing must have done something to his brain, because the next thing out of his mouth was "But Astrid! I don't know if you cleaned out the eyeballs it swallowed. But that's okay because I love being with you no matter what and I'm having a great time even though it's about to rain and I'll eat anything you make."

"Oh, Hiccup! Kiss me!"

"Of course! Any time in public." Fishlegs laughed again. "I really hope they don't hear us."

"Yeah, we should watch our volume," she replied, bringing her voice back down to its normal range.

"And I've seen more disgusting couples. A lot more disgusting."

She sighed and nodded. "Yeah, they need to give us more to make fun of behind their backs. In fact, they might be making fun of us right now."

He tried to listen for sounds of mocking. "Why would they be making fun of us?"

"I don't know. What do they think we're doing back here?"

That was an interesting question. "I was legitimately almost choking to death. I really did need water."

She stared at him, grin gone even though she wasn't exactly frowning.

It unnerved him. "What?"

"Nothing." She shook her head. "Let's go save my poor brother."


	18. Frustration and Fighting

Frustration! Frustration was supposed to be a valid emotion, a great mix of what one wanted to do combined with what was happening. It was meant to inspire and challenge one to do her best of twisting and fighting and manipulating until one had exactly what she wanted. Ruffnut had always seen frustration was a good thing, but now it was ropes around her and she had no knife with which to cut them. It was a large rock that had been chucked at her head that left her spinning, aching, and confused.

Ruffnut was pretty sure the ropes had been snaking around her, too subtle to be noticed, for quite a while. But the rock? She could pinpoint when the rock of frustration had struck her: her birthday, out by the stream, when she had been sure something was happening, when she had felt something, and when Fishlegs had done nothing. Absolutely nothing. Guys were bewildering! There she had been and there he had been and the stream had been pretty and lots of fall colors had been everywhere.

It had been frustrating.

She wasn't sure what she had expected Fishlegs to do. Something. Something besides standing there asking "what?" like the idiot that he was. He could have said something else or done something else. Anything. And the fact that she couldn't really specify what he should have done was frustrating.

And it was even more frustrating that she was so frustrated by this.

Of course she had not acted that way. She had finished up the rest of the stupid picnic hike in classic Ruffnut style—at least as much as she dared with Tuffnut around. She had teased and thrown rocks at animals and insulted random people from the tribe. She had made it home that evening before the stupid fatigue had hit her, treated Fishlegs like she had always treated him, and fell into the bed when her body screamed at her to do so.

The days passed by just like that. The weirdly frustrating version of normal.

She had no idea what to do about it.

It was Fishlegs, for crying out loud. Fishlegs! The same guy she had known for forever, the same hulking example of the perfect Viking who had always flipped out if a dragon had come too close, the same nerd who knew every stupid and useless fact about every stupid and useless subject, the same guy who had done all of this and was thus apparently considered the only person in the village who could tolerate marriage to her.

Maybe that was it. He could handle being married to her without freaking out too much. Maybe she felt flattered. Maybe she liked it that he was safe and sweet and didn't expect too much out of her and liked her just fine as she was.

And maybe, just maybe, she wasn't fine with him liking her "just fine".

She had liked boys before, and then she had liked boys. It was a world of difference, and maybe now she was trekking across that world and she had no idea what to do. It was not one of those situations where she could bat her eyes and lean in too close in the way that drove so many guys bonkers. Fishlegs wouldn't even get that, and since they were already married such tactics were a little late to be useful.

So she tried what she could. Talking. She was pretty good at talking. Except Fishlegs liked to talk about such weird and boring things that didn't interest her and then would stare at her in confusion if she spoke of anything else. Small talk was a mess. She stunk at small talk and the only time she had to practice it was in the morning when things were awkward because she was incapable of not collapsing into bed the first post-noon moment she came near it. Any other moment that crept up found her inconveniently sick.

What a great condition to be in when she decided she liked somebody.

Yes, it was all frustrating and she was not doing well with it.

At last she could take no more of it. Her mother was no good; Stormbite's only interests were knowing every last thing Ruffnut consumed or did and when she planned on telling Fishlegs about any of it. So one frost-covered morning Ruffnut gathered up all messed-up fabric she could and set out for the one female who seemed happy with love.

Astrid didn't blink when Ruff dumped her materials on the floor but did ask "What's this?"

"Stuff." It didn't require any eye rolling on Ruff's part. She wasn't even here for sewing. "I've spun it and I've wove it and now I'm going to attempt to make something out of it and I have no idea how to go about that."

Astrid's mother made a sound suspiciously like a laugh. "I'm going out," she said.

Probably to gossip with other village women about Ruff's clothes-making abilities. Or to discuss all the weird details of planning a marriage. Whatever. At least she would be gone. So Ruff just bit her tongue and waited for the door to close.

"She hates me," she said as soon as Astrid's mother was gone.

Astrid rolled her eyes and picked through the mess on the floor. "She doesn't hate you. She just doesn't think you know what you're doing. Which, I'm sorry to say, you don't."

"Which is why I'm here." Ruff held up a section of cloth that seemed the least sloppy. "I get it. It's winter, it's cold, I need to make clothes. It's my lot." Did she sound enough like she was interested in making clothes?

"We'll be sure to include weapons and fighting as well," Astrid said with the appropriate spark assuring she wasn't a lost wife cause. She walked to a shelf and pulled out a box of needles. "So what do you want to learn how to make?"

Ruff hadn't prepared that much information. Her breath caught in her throat before she managed a "What?"

"Ruff, I know you know the basics of clothing. So what do you want to make? It'll be fun. You and me, sewing and talking. It'll be fun. But what are we going to make?"

"A shirt." It was the first thing that came to mind. "I mess up shirts when I try to make them. They look awful."

"For you or for Fishlegs?"

Ruff tossed the cloth on the floor. "Why is sewing so complicated?"

Astrid set the needle box down. "I just asked a question—"

"I know." Ruff took a deep breath and put her hand on her forehead. She was almost getting feverish. Not good. She should just say what she came here to say. "I actually don't want to sew. Anything."

"So you just lugged over all of this—"

"I think I like Fishlegs." It came out way too fast and she couldn't tell if she had whispered it or screamed it, but at least it was out and open for debate and discussion.

"Oh." Astrid sat down on the floor. "Oh!"

"Yes, oh!" Ruff kicked at the cloth before seating herself down. "So exactly what am I supposed to do with that?"

But Astrid did not look like she was properly analyzing it. "This is good, isn't it? I mean, when you say you think you like him, you mean… you're falling for him?"

"I really don't like that term, Astrid."

"But you're married! Why not? When was the last time you liked somebody?"

Ruff could barely focus on the list of crushes she had over the years. "I think it was Hiccup, actually. Not to make things awkward or anything."

"Not awkward at all! Just shows you have good taste!" Astrid's face was lit as bright as if this conversation was actually supposed to be about Hiccup. "I'm really happy for you, Ruff."

"But it's Fishlegs!" Ruff gave the pile of fabric a shove.

"So? You just admitted to having liked Hiccup, and he's weird. There are worse people you could have feelings for. Like that guy with the wart on his nose who wants to train squirrels."

"That's true…"

Astrid cleared her throat and managed to look more serious. "Look. It's not a bad thing. Fishlegs is a very nice guy and he's strong and you're already married anyway so it'll probably make everything that much better. Do you want me to come up with reasons you shouldn't like him?"

Ruff stared at her hands. "I don't know."

"Because I can't think of any. I'm sorry. So when did you have this epiphany?"

"I don't know. I was all upset because he didn't want to fight or do anything fun with me and when he did it was really fun and I enjoyed it and he's super nice and…" She shook her head and sighed. "I don't know."

Astrid shook her head, grin returning. "Now you know how I feel."

Freya, no, Ruff did not want to act like Astrid did around the Hiccup topic. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to think. What else could she place before Astrid in hopes of wisdom? "There's more."

"More?"

Ruff took a deep breath. "I'm pretty sure I'm pregnant."

Astrid stared.

Ruff took another breath. Wow. And there that was. Spoken aloud for the first time ever to anyone but her mother. She had hardly dared think them to herself.

"What?" Astrid demanded.

"I think I'm—"

"How do you know? I guess your mom would have said something and… wow! How long have you known? What do you think?" Further words tumbled from Astrid's mouth, mostly words for questions.

Now Ruff had to talk about this? "I'm like almost two months late and my mom has said all these things for years and I'm sick all the time and all I ever want to do is sleep and… and I can just tell! I've been this way for so many weeks and this is the first time I've said anything to anyone but my mom and I'm thinking Axeblade for a boy and Nettlesting for a girl. Or Bee Sting. I haven't decided yet. But I like the sting sound."

"It's a great sound," Astrid said with a nod. "Wow! So….this is news. Good news?"

"I haven't really thought about if it's good or bad, but yeah, I think it's good." She shook her head. "I feel really dizzy talking about this."

"Of course!" Astrid jumped to her feet and ran for a mug of water. "Drink all you want."

Except the water almost made Ruff feel sick. But she drank it anyway.

"You don't look pregnant," Astrid continued, unable to take her eyes away. "Do you think you look pregnant? Exactly when are you supposed to look pregnant?"

"Can you please stop asking questions?"

"Sorry. I'm just… I'm just thinking this is exciting and I'm really happy for you."

"Thank-you." Now the water was fortunately settling her stomach and her head.

For a long time neither of them said anything.

"So have you told Fishlegs?" Astrid finally asked.

Back to him. Ruff sighed. "About the baby or that I like him?"

"Either. Both."

"I tried. Once. And then I felt stupid. About the pregnancy, I mean. And exactly how am I supposed to say that I have a crush on him when I can barely flirt with him?"

Astrid shrugged. "Well, you have to say something sometime."

Ruff sighed again. "I know."

* * *

A catapult. That was Fishleg's latest project. Was anything cooler than a catapult? A dragon had demolished one of the old ones and even though Berk wasn't defending itself against dragons anymore catapults were still a useful thing to have around and who did not want to build a catapult? Maybe it was more Hiccup's thing, but Hiccup was sort of involved and it did involve lots of wood. Fishlegs could carve that wood. It would be the most awesome catapult Berk had ever seen.

He was still thinking about it when he entered the little house. There were a lot of things to think about. The type of wood, the shape, the number of plants needed. It was art. He was so involved that he barely noticed Ruffnut standing by the table or that the entire place smelled of burnt something.

"Hi," she said, pulling him from his thoughts.

He stared at her. For some reason she unbraided all her hair and it was hanging all long and wavy and pretty and somewhat tangled. And for some reason it terrified him and told him to go right back out the door and run. Ruffnut was up to something. "Hi." Was there more he should say? "You're awake."

She nodded. "I don't sleep all the time, you moron. I made dinner." She gestured at the table, where there was a plate of semi-burnt fish and mostly burnt bread.

She was being nice. Oh no. She wasn't supposed to be nice. But here she was being nice and looking really pretty… Once more he considered running back outside. "Oh. Okay." He sat down at the table and took a fish. It wasn't too bad burnt. Gave it a nice smoky flavor. "This is pretty good."

She smiled broadly. It lit up her whole face. "Thanks."

Fishlegs continued to eat it slowly as he tried to think. What was going on? Ruff was being nice, just like she had been for a long time now. Sweet. Trying to talk to him even though he had no idea how to talk to her. It was terrifying, but maybe it wasn't all bad. Maybe this was good.

"I'm thinking I might throw the bread outside, though," she said. "It's like charcoal."

"Okay." What else was he supposed to say?

She got up and tossed the bread out the door with an impressive throw.

"Good throw," he said when she returned to the table. "Did you hit anyone?"

She gave a genuine laugh. "No."

"Because that really would have been funny."

She continued to smile. So weird. Here she was with her hair down and being all smiley and pretty. It was good, he decided. Really good. He had to keep it up. He had to say something. What would impress her? The catapult. It was a violent weapon. She'd like that. "So Hiccup and I are going to make the new catapult for the village."

"Bet it won't throw father than I just did," she said with a smirk.

He smiled back. This was going well. Really well. "Probably not." How did that sound? Good? Bad? He meant it as a compliment. A… flirtatious compliment. Did she take it as that? "I mean that as a compliment. Realistically a catapult would toss something much further than a human being would but I wanted to make you feel good about yourself and maybe make a joke so that's what I said and I hope you take it that way…" He decided to stop talking.

Which turned out to be a good idea, because the next thing he knew Ruff was on his lap and her mouth was against his.

Whoa. Nice. Way nice. Cooler than catapults. He kissed back, not quite sure what was going on but enjoying it just the same despite the tiny part in his mind that screamed something was up and he had best get out alive.

Finally she pulled back. "Fishlegs, I want to tell you something."

He nodded, mind spinning, barely away of what she had said. This was very weird. Weirder than he had originally expected. But it was good. It had to be good. That other weirdness between them was finally gone and replaced with this. Now he had to do something. Something that she liked. If they did something she liked then maybe she would think he liked her and that would be good. Except she wanted to say something.

She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

"Go on," he encouraged her.

She tried again, then giggled and shook her head. "Sorry. I don't know how to say it. But I'm going to keep trying."

"You just have to say it." Wasn't she the one that liked to talk? She should certainly be able to say what she needed to say.

"It's trickier than that. I'm sorry."

Girls were so weird. He returned to his other thoughts. What did Ruff like to do? "We could do something else until you say it. We could play a game. Wash things. We could… fight. You love fighting." Good pick, if he did say so himself. Ruff loved fighting.

She shook her head and climbed off of him. "I don't want to fight."

Just what was that supposed to mean? Just because he had said before he didn't like fighting with her and wouldn't do it. Was she bitter about that? He really didn't know how to read her. "I mean it. Wrestling. Sword fighting. Anything at all. You can throw a spear at me."

"Uh-uh. I don't want to fight with you."

"You always wanted to before. You were mad because I wouldn't."

She sat back in her chair. "Well, not anymore."

Fishlegs was confused. So one day she wanted to fight and was mad because he wouldn't and suddenly he was no longer a worthy opponent? Wasn't fighting what she liked? So if she didn't want to do something she liked with him, what was that supposed to mean? "Did I do something?"

"No. I…" She took a deep breath. "I just can't fight with you."

"I'm not good enough?" It sounded so much more accusing than he intended it. Oops. It was just supposed to be a simple question.

Too accusing, by the way Ruff's eyes darkened. "I didn't say that!"

How was he supposed to know what she was saying? One second she was all happy and now she looked ready to kill him. Maybe that little voice telling him to get out was right. How was he supposed to phrase questions so they sounded neutral and scientific? "Then what are you saying? You don't like fighting with me anymore?"

She stared at him a long time, and then for a moment she seemed ready to say something. But instead she jumped to her feet and shoved her chair under the table. It was a hard shove.

"What did I do?" he heard himself demand. He should have expected this. This was Ruff. She was completely crazy and would never make any sense.

"All I said is that I didn't want to fight or anything and you just kept bringing it up!" she snapped, throwing her hands in the air.

"I thought they were legitimate questions!"

She glared at him, stuck out her tongue, then flopped onto the bed. "No, you were the one acting like I was mad at you."

He stood up and shoved his own chair. "Well, you seem pretty mad at me now."

"I am. So shut up."

"You're mad just because I suggested we do something I thought you liked it?"

"That's the general idea." She punched her pillow. "And I told you to shut up."

There had to be a way to fix it. It had been so good three minutes ago with the kissing. Except he doubted she would like it if he tried to kiss her now. "I thought you had something to tell me."

"Yeah, well, right now I'm tired. I'm going to sleep."

She was always tired. How convenient. "To avoid me?"

"Maybe. By the way, you can sleep on the floor. Or outside. I don't care right now."

Next time he would trust his instinct. "I'm going back to work on the catapult."

"Good! Sleep at the shop!" She yanked the covers over her head.

He slammed the door on his way out. He normally didn't slam things. This had just been a small argument with crazy Ruff.

Yet he was more bothered by it then he logically should be.


	19. Jinx

It was still dark when Ruffnut awoke, still sleepy but in a panick that was against that. The fire was still going fairly strong, and it didn't seem to be anywhere near morning. Kisa was still snoozing at her side and Kisa didn't rouse till near dawn. Her arms were tightly wrapped around Fishlegs' pillow. And Fishlegs was not in the bed.

Good. He had listened. He had listened to her stupid tantrum and had obeyed.

She yawned. Her body was achy, weak, and felt like it had been thrown off a cliff. And yet her mind was awake and going through every moment of the disastrous evening. "Fishlegs?" she called.

No answer. She squinted into the darkness for any form on the floor that could be Fishlegs. He was big enough that he wouldn't be hard to miss. But there was nothing.

Okay. So he had stayed at the shop. He really had listened. How stupid had she been to say all of that?

She stared at the ceiling, silent cursing herself. How not-so-great had she been? She had tried to be all cutesy and domestic. She had made dinner. She had tried to look pretty. She had tried to tell him she was pregnant. Then she had overreacted over something he probably hadn't really meant. Now what did he think of her? That she was crazy? Admittedly she had been acting crazy as of late, but Fishlegs should have been calm enough to put up with it. Did he hate her now? She had practically kicked him out of the house, the one he had helped build.

It was all so clear what he must have been thinking. This… fighting thing. So she loved fighting. There was nothing better than getting down and dirty to match skill against skill for the pure fun of it. So the first time he agreed to it she said no. Like he wasn't good enough to fight her. The ultimate insult. No wonder he had been so angry!

She brought a fist down hard on the bed. Stupid stupid stupid. She had no idea how to deal with having a husband. Clearly not a clue. And now her ignorance had landed her all alone at night. In a house all by herself. She had never, ever been alone at night in a house. It was scary. Terrifying. And it became more and more terrifying the longer she thought about it. The firelight flickering on the wall with the shadows…

Ridiculous. Just shadows. Though it was inconvenient Kisa was still a kitten because kittens were just useless if anything attacked.

Her stomach churned. It felt like she had swallowed knives that were ready to come out blades first. She crawled from the bed and stumbled to the door. The room was freezing. Staying in bed would have been so much more preferable if she hadn't needed to throw up. She pushed open the door and collapsed onto the ice-cold ground. Thor's beard, this was the sickest she had ever been, and it didn't seem her stomach would ever feel empty. There wasn't a single star to make the night better, just a moody covering of clouds tossing out a few faint snowflakes. Snow. Again. Stupid winter.

She returned inside and lay down, feeling even worse. Every part of her hurt.

At least sleep quickly returned.

The next time her eyes snapped open it was dawn. The fire was out, and the room felt like ice. Still no Fishlegs.

So that's how it was going to be. He was going to ignore her. He was good at that. All the guilt she had felt during the night vanished. Any thoughts in the middle of the night couldn't be trusted. She knew that. She picked up his pillow and chucked it across the room. It didn't break. Pillows didn't break. It didn't even break anything. Not that she had thrown it at anything breakable.

She felt even worse. A spear might as well have been shoved through her abdomen. Oh well. Apparently no one cared about how she felt. She ran a brush through her hair and angrily wove it into braids before piling them into the stupid married woman knot. Yes, she was married and she would act like it even her husband was an idiot who didn't understand the meaning of "No, I don't feel like fighting." It was the best knot she had ever done with her hair. Oh, she was getting good. Then she left the house.

The few flakes of hours earlier had changed. Snow plummeted from the sky, and already a respectable collection of it covered the ground. Furs. She needed a coat in this. Except the cold took the edge off the pain and apparently Fishlegs didn't care if she froze to death.

The sight was beautiful, actually. Snow everywhere, flakes falling faster and faster. She didn't care. She marched up to her family's house and threw open the door. "Tuff!"

He was up, ready for the day, and busily shoving breakfast into his mouth. He stared at her and swallowed the choke-risk mouthful. "What?"

"Come outside." She wrapped her arms around her. It really was cold.

He didn't move. "Why don't you have a coat? Too stupid to put one on?"

"I don't need a coat." She was beginning to shiver.

Tuffnut sighed, stood up from the table, and grabbed a couple of things from the fur pile. He tossed something that must have once belonged to a bear at her, then wrapped a coat around himself. "What's going on?"

The bearskin was unbelievably warm. "I just want to talk." She walked down the path toward the docks, hoping Tuffnut would be smart enough to follow.

He was. "You know I really don't do this whole talking thing. Tantrum keeps following me around and all she can do is talk and I'm kind of sick of it."

"Oh, please, you love hearing yourself talk."

"Yeah, but someone else's voice is a different story entirely."

She really hurt. Now it felt like a second and third dull spears had been shoved through her. "I made Fishlegs sleep into the carpentry shop last night."

Tuffnut laughed. "Nice! I mean, what happened?"

She stared up at the falling snow and screamed. "He's impossible. He said he wanted to fight with me and I said no and he got all offended and then we got in this huge argument and now everything is messed up. I don't get him. I don't think I will ever get him. He… he just puts up with me and I can tell. It's so annoying."

"Maybe you should make him sleep at the shop every night."

Why had she bothered talking to Tuffnut? He didn't get it, either. Why had she expected him to? They reached the docks and she stopped at the edge of the highest. The winter ocean was gorgeous, but she didn't care how it looked. All she cared was that her body felt like it was being ripped to shreds and that she had no idea how to make her husband like her. Maybe she should have stayed in the house and been miserable.

"Okay, we're at the docks," Tuffnut said. He was already getting bored. "Now what?"

"Why don't you just jump in and do—" She gasped as pain worthy of at least four more spears shot through her body.

"Ruff?" At least the boredom was gone from Tuffnut's voice. "Are you okay?"

She forced herself to nod. This was by far the sickest she had ever felt. "I always feel sick and everything's been hurting. It's just… more today." What was she talking about? She could barely breathe and her legs felt like they had been cut off. She sunk to her knees, arms over her stomach.

"You don't look okay." Tuffnut's voice sounded distant, yet it pounded into her brain as if he had been shouting at her.

"Geeze, you idiot, this is the perfect time to mock me and you're just standing there being concerned—" She gasped again, and the ocean, docks, and sky went red, then black.

The blackness couldn't have lasted more than a few seconds, because when she came to Tuff was just barely crouching over her, looking more frightened than she had ever seen him.

"Ow," she murmured under her breath. An unseen axe was tearing into her stomach.

"Here." He put her arm around his shoulder.

She hated it. This was her brother. He was supposed to be teasing and tormenting her, not helping her. Her feet fought for the ground, but the pain was too intense, and she slid back to her knees, dragging Tuffnut along.

Something was wrong.

No. Nothing was wrong. Nothing more than everything else that was already wrong. But it was all she could do not to scream. "I need to see Mom."

He nodded. "Of course."

She could feel it.

Tuffnut scooped her up and hurried up the hill. How embarrassing. She couldn't walk so her own brother had to carry her.

And she could still feel it.

Blood.

* * *

The carpentry shop proved to be actually not too bad. After four hours of tearing wood apart until nothing remained but sawdust and a few sticks and slivers, anywhere made a good bed. That, or he was a true testament to the Viking ability to sleep anywhere when necessary, comfort be damned. Good thing to remember. It sort of cancelled out the humiliation of being thrown from his own house that he had helped build. Had she forgotten that? He should have gone right back in there… or gone back in at some point during the night… or snuck in during the early morning and pretended he had come in much earlier…

Instead he woke to find his father staring down at him bemusedly.

Great. Now he would have to share the entire story. He sat up and wiped sawdust from his hair.

"Late night?" his father asked as he turned to the planks he had been working on the day before.

Fishlegs nodded. His father did not suspect a thing. "Late night?" meant exactly what it suggested: Fishlegs had done nothing more exciting than stay late at the shop and fall asleep there. "Yeah, making stuff for the catapult. Though the oak was no good for it. Need a better sample."

"Nothing like good old-fashioned work. You're not the first Viking to spend the entire night working nor will you be the last! Just make sure you have enough wits about you to keep yourself doing anything stupid with anything sharp. Limbs have been lost by tired workers."

"I'll keep that in mind." He stared at the remains of the wood. What could have been a useful part of a catapult was now ready to be strewn over a pen. Ah well. There was better oak out there. Already in the shop, in fact. Except he was starving. The burnt fish hadn't set well with his stomach.

But going out would mean potentially running into Ruffnut.

She was so infuriating. Was there anyone more infuriating than her? How had Tuffnut put up with her for all those years? She was completely crazy, not wanting to fight and making dinner and kissing him completely out of the blue… He shook his head and began to clean up the mess.

His father was right. Work was good, even sweeping, and when he finished that he went right into stripping the bark from the next oak log until it was bare and screaming for something to be done to it. Catapult. Yes, it would be for the coolest catapult that Berk would ever see.

His mind had completely forgotten about Ruffnut and was blissfully absorbed into the wood when there was a sharp rap on the door and Snotlout walked in with Tantrum right behind him.

"Hi," he began hurridly. "I just need to borrow something sharp and heavy for a quick second and Tantrum, I'm not kidding."

She giggled and brushed her red curls from her shoulder. " He's so goofy. He says he's going to take a chisel and carve me to death if I don't get away from him. So cute.,"

Fishlegs stared at the chisel in his hands. He wasn't sure he wanted it used as a murder weapon. "Um…"

But Snotlout's eyes were not on the chisel. They were on Fishlegs. "What are you doing here?" Snotlout asked.

Fishlegs found himself actually handing Snotlout the chisel. "Why wouldn't I be here?"

"I don't know." Snotlout looked as if the chisel had come from the gods. "If you want to be here, hey, I totally respect that. I just assumed you'd be up with Ruff."

When he had so conveniently chased her from his mind.

"Unless she's feeling better and everything's okay," Snotlout continued. "It is Ruff. She's springy, whatever happened."

Something happened? Fishlegs' breath caught in his throat. "What?"

"It was a few hours ago," said Tantrum nonchalantly. "I guess she passed out or something. But fainting can be bad especially if she hit her head. She was with Tuffnut, so I guess he took her back to the family's house." She sighed happily. "He's so caring!"

"Then go bother him, you obnoxious person," Snotlout said with nastiness that did not seem to phase Tantrum. "Yeah, so that's what I saw. I think you would have heard if she were dead, so it's not a big deal you're here instead—"

But it was a big deal. Why would it not be a big deal? Fishlegs pushed past Tantrum and Snotlout. Outside the snow was falling fast and thick. With Berk's luck a full-blown blizzard would be in by nightfall.

It was probably nothing. Maybe Snotlout had seen someone else entirely. Ruffnut and Tuffnut were always doing stupid things, so if something was wrong she probably deserved it. And anyway she was strong and could certainly take care of herself. This was no big deal, so why was he freaking out? Wasn't he supposed to be mad at her? For all he knew Snotlout was completely wrong and he would burst into the Thorston home and make an idiot of himself.

Yet burst into the Thorston home was what he did. He threw open the door without a knock to see Tuffnut and his parents sitting at the kitchen table, eyes now on him.

So this was what it felt like to feel stupid. Some meteor could strike him right now. He took a deep breath and realized he hadn't been breathing. "Hi. Um, I heard Ruff was here?"

Stormbite nodded and stood up. "Back bedroom."

"But don't open the door unless you want something thrown at your head," Tuffnut said with a dark laugh, pointing to a red spot on his forehead.

"She's okay, then?" Breathing was becoming easier. If she were awake and throwing things she had to be fine and maybe he had come over here for no reason. "Snotlout said—"

"She lost the baby," Tuffnut Senior said.

What? Fishlegs could not have heard right. What did that have to do with anything that had happened to Ruff?

"Don't!" Stormbite slammed a fist into her husband's shoulder.

"What? It's better than the boy assuming the worst."

It was difficult to breathe all over again. Here they were talking about some baby and worst-case scenarios and Fishlegs had no idea what to make of that. "What are you talking about? I just asked about Ruff." His voice was high and shrill and it drove even himself nuts, but he couldn't help it right now.

Tuffnut sighed and traced his finger over the tabletop. "She didn't tell you about the baby, did she?"

The words made no sense.

"She said she was going to tell you yesterday," Stormbite said softly. "I was thinking it didn't happen."

Baby. The word was meaningless and yet terrifying. He needed to ask more, ask about that, ask why no one bothered to tell him that something had happened to Ruff, but that was more needs than he could handle. He stormed forward to the room Stormbite had gestured at and opened the door.

Immediately something that looked like a plate came flying at him. He ducked, and pottery broke against the wall.

"Oh, it's you." Ruff's voice didn't sound especially surprised or even interested.

He looked at her. She was sitting up in the bed, everything that could have possibly been in the room piled up next to her, a rock already in her hands, ready to throw. Why would she have a rock with her? Her hair fell in the familiar old braids, but those were a mess. Her face was pale and wet with perspiration, her eyes red.

"Yeah," he replied softly, shutting the door behind him. "It's me."

She set the rock back in her pile. "Who told you? You weren't supposed to know."

Another question answer. "Snotlout saw something, so he told me…" The stupid fight of the night before returned to his mind. "Do you want me to leave?"

She sighed and shook her head. "I don't care either way. So I guess you heard?" It was more of a statement than a question.

He nodded and took a few steps closer to the bed. "About…" He could barely think it, let alone say it. "… the baby. You were pregnant. That's what you were going to say last night."

She nodded, adjusted the pillow, and and lay down. "Doesn't matter anymore. Nothing to say."

The confirmation from her was stabbing. What was he supposed to say to that? "So one time we did anything and… that." He had a sudden urge to scream. It was making sense now. She was pregnant, had been pregnant, and hadn't told him in time.

She nodded again. "I'm sorry." Her voice was a whisper. "I'm really sorry."

Somehow he had made it all the way to the side of the bed. "Sorry for what?"

She shrugged and turned to face him. "I don't know. I'm just sorry. Look, I really don't want to talk about this right now. You weren't even supposed to be here. You are supposed to be back doing all your stupid woodcarving stuff and I'm supposed to be here."

"I came when I heard. And now it would be really weird to go back right now and I don't think I can anyway…" He sighed. The words sounded awful. Talking wasn't his strongest suit of the moment. "Are you okay?" Even dumber. Of course she wasn't okay. She didn't look okay.

Her face said as much. She rolled her eyes and sighed. "I feel like I've been tossed off a cliff and landed on a spike that went right through the middle of me. No, you oaf, I'm not okay!"

He nodded. He probably deserved that. "Just asking."

She sighed again. "I jinxed it. I was happy about it and I told Astrid yesterday before trying to tell you and that must have messed everything up."

"I don't think it works that way." The next thing he knew he was grabbing her hand. He didn't know why. It just seemed… appropriate. And she wasn't pulling away.

"That coming from the person who believes in the ability to control severed hands," Ruff muttered.

He had no response to that.

Neither did she. She just buried her face in her pillow and made a sound that didn't register with Fishlegs for nearly a minute.

She was crying.

It took another minute of going through every memory he ever had of her before realizing that he had never seen her anywhere near crying. Ever.

But here she was, sobbing into her pillow while he held her hand that all but disappeared into his.


	20. Avoiding Thoughts

_If anyone is still having issues with the last chapter, may we suggest Gumdrop Boo's "The Roughest Part of Life"? It's very good and should fill the baby need. =D_

* * *

Ruffnut did not remember falling asleep. She found herself blinking awake, the comforting and dense darkness a faint sensation. How long had she been asleep and why could she not go back to it? It was nice and thoughtless and painless. Now she was awake and confused about just what she was doing in her old bed. The reason for that returned too quickly. All those weeks in a silent tumult of being so sure she was pregnant had found confirmation and conclusion in a wave of blood and pain. Just how long was that supposed to last? At the moment she felt only slightly less worse than when Tuffnut had unceremoniously dumped her in the bed with their mother hovering over her. And this was with the last numbing remnants of sleep.

None of it made any sense. She hadn't done anything. She had not fought with anyone, as much as she had wanted to. She had been careful. She had done every stupid thing her mother had told her to do. She had been completely stunned for such a long time and then finally excited. But none of it had mattered at all.

It was too much to think about. She hurt so much she wanted she to scream and she definitely did not want to be thinking. But the thoughts just kept coming. What was the reason? Was it her? Was it because she was who she was, the completely crazy girl? Too psychotic for anything the least bit domestic or even responsible? Was that the idea here? So she was being punished? Was that it? She wasn't good enough? Her eyes burned, but apparently every tear for that day had been cried out.

She closed her eyes again and breathed in the scent of her pillow. It stunk like sweat and tears, and was still slightly dump. Gross. She turned her head to the side to stare out the window and tried to figure out what time of day it was. Even that motion was painful. Outside snow was still falling. At least there was light. Though if it were dark it would mean night and maybe she could force herself back to sleep and forget this horrible day had happened.

Fishlegs' arm lay on the edge of the bed, his hand clasped around hers. His gaze was focused on the floor. His free hand was occupied with rolling a pair of dice over and over again and moving a stubby piece of candle and a rock around the floor.

She watched in a thoughtless haze before it occurred to her she might say something. "What are you doing?"

He quickly scooped up the dice and looked at her. He was more terrified than she had ever seen him. " You're awake!"

She considered nodding, but it didn't seem worth the effort. "Yeah."

He glanced at the rock and candle. "I was… bored. I mean, I wasn't bored. It's just that I've been here for a long time and I had to do something. So I was playing a game while you were asleep."

Of course he was. She smiled weakly—a smile that ended quickly. Even smiling hurt. "You could have left. You didn't have to sit here the entire time. Who does that?"

His hand twitched around hers, and he still looked terrified to be anywhere near her. "Well, every time I tried to move you sort of freaked out in your sleep, so I really couldn't leave and so you had these things in your throwing-stuff pile and I had to do something."

"Uh, you have dice, a rock, and a candle."

"Yeah. They're… battling. I'm rolling the dice for both and whichever gets the higher roll wins and the rock is a troll that was struck by sunlight but is still pretty deadly, probably more so because it's now made of a stone and can crush its enemies and the candle, well… I couldn't think of anything, so it's a giant candle."

She would have laughed if she had felt up to it. "I'm rooting for the giant candle."

"Yeah." Fishlegs let the dice fall from his hand. "I forgot which turn it was."

"You rolled a two. One of them just lost no matter what." She winced as more pain rolled through her abdomen. "Who's ahead?"

But it seemed as if he had forgotten the whole thing. One wince and his attention was hers. He turned from the little dice game and grabbed her other hand. "What? Are you okay? Still hurting?"

What a dumb question. She sighed. "What do you think? How long was I asleep?"

"About five hours."

"You sat here for five hours?" That was impressive. As much as she thought he was an idiot for sitting next to her bed holding her hand for five hours she did like the fact that he had done so.

He nodded. "Your mom's been in a few times. She says it's completely normal that you would be tired and that you need to rest so don't worry about sleeping for that long."

Had that been said for Ruff's benefit or for his? She pulled one of her hands from his and rubbed her eyes. Normal. So all of this was supposed to be normal? What was this normal? None of this was in anyway normal. She really didn't want to cry again, not after Fishlegs had sat next to her playing some weird dice game for hours.

"I'm sorry," she said softly. "I was going to tell you. I swear. I tried to last night."

"About…" He swallowed. "How you were… with… before this…"

She sighed and nodded. She could manage a nod now. "The pregnancy." She really did not want to be talking about this. It just seemed like something that needed to be said. An obligation. Once she apologized, she could shove the whole ordeal to the back of her mind. "Do we have to talk about this now?"

"I'd rather not. If that's okay." He looked like he would rather be talking about anything else. "If you want to talk about it, we can talk about it, but…"

"I'm good for now." She didn't want to think about it. She didn't want to think about anything. She didn't want to be in her old bed in her old home with a mother that knew way too much about these kinds of things and would be trying to make sure everything was okay. When it wasn't. "I want to go back to the house."

"Our house?"

She nodded.

Fishlegs took a deep breath. "But your mom said she wants to keep an eye on you and she said that something could still go wrong and—"

"Then you can get her if something goes wrong. That's her job in this village." She turned to stare at the ceiling, then sat up. Gods, it hurt.

"But it's snowing outside."

Had he always been this dense? "Then find me a coat or something, Fishlegs. It's Berk. I've seen snow before. I've dealt with snow every year of my life. This was why we have furs and coats."

He nodded, stood up, and left the room. She wiggled the fingers of her left hand. They needed blood flow. He had held her hand for five hours plus however long she had bawled into her pillow. Wow. Weird and so sweet. Somehow it made her feel slightly less horrible.

A minute later Fishlegs was back with the same bear fur Tuffnut had tossed at her that morning. But instead of tossing it at her he forcefully wrapped it around her until she could scarcely breathe and before she had a chance to protest. By the time she could think to do so he had her in his arms and was almost to the door.

"Fishlegs!" she shrieked. But struggling made her feel worse.

He just held her tighter. "You have to be warm. I barely got your parents to agree to me taking you back to the house."

Indeed, the journey through the main room of the house consisted of her mother and father shouting instructions to Fishlegs and asking if she were warm enough.

"Bearskins are already warm! " Ruff insisted as Fishlegs stepped out into the snow. "You don't have to cut off my circulation!"

"I didn't cut off your circulation," he replied. "Your skin looks fine and I know how to cut off someone's circulation and I didn't do it to you."

Snowflakes were stuck in her eyelashes, and she couldn't even move her arms to brush them away. "I can't believe you know how to cut off someone's circulation. Do you do this regularly?"

"No." He sounded bewildered she would ask such a question.

"What other horrible things do you know how to do to people that I don't know about? Are you some insane secret murderer and I had no idea?"

"We're Vikings…"

Oh. The boring answer. She sighed and leaned her head against his shoulder. The snow was a mess. Maybe there would be a proper snowstorm by evening. That would be cool. Nothing cooler than a total blizzard. "How come I don't get to walk?"

"You're supposed to rest," Fishlegs said.

"I had Tuff carrying me this morning and now you're carrying me. It's like I don't get to walk today."

"Do you think you can handle walking?" He slowed down. "Do you want to walk?"

She considered both questions. "No."

The house was freezing. No one being home all day meant absolutely no fire waiting for them. Even Kisa looked cold, all huddled up near the pillows. Fishlegs laid Ruffnut down on the bed and muttered something about starting a fire.

"I have to be back in the bed?" she demanded. Not that she felt capable of movement.

"That's what your mom said. You're supposed to stay still and to rest and let her know if anything feels really bad." In moments Fishlegs had a few flames crackling. "Are you hungry?"

Hungry? She hadn't eaten all day, but food still sounded disgusting. "No. Are you?"

"No."

She frowned at him.

"I'm starving. But if you're not hungry then I won't eat if it makes you feel sick or anything. I don't know these things really work. How do you feel? Maybe you should eat something. That would be good for you."

She laughed softly. "Go ahead and make something. If it looks good I'll eat it."

He nodded uncomfortably. "Okay."

"Okay."

But he didn't move to the cooking area. He jumped in the bed next to her. "What do you want to do first?"

"Before you eat something?" This was insane. And he thought she was crazy.

"Yeah. Anything you want. Are you comfortable? Do you need anything?"

Such attention. She fought back a smile. "I still have the stupid bearskin around me."

"Oh. Of course." He unwrapped it from her as quickly as he had got it around her. "Is that better?"

"Yes, Fishlegs, being able to move is better." She stretched her arms in front of her.

"So now what?" he asked. "What else? Do you feel okay? Do I need to get your mom?"

"No change in the last two minutes and I really don't want to be thinking about that. I think the worst is over. At least it had better be."

"Okay." He nodded. "It's just that your mom said you were supposed to rest."

"I think I got that." Were they supposed to talk about this now? It was still shoved away in the back of her mind and that seemed to be best.

He blushed. "I know. I'm just worried, I guess. So what else can I get for you? A book or something?"

"I don't want a book." Who did he think she was? 

"Something to knit?"

She laughed. "You're kidding, right?"

He scooped up Kisa from the pillows and handed her to Ruff. "Here. You like holding the cat."

The kitten looked up at her meowed. The little fluffy thing was so cute and small and why in Hel's name did Fishlegs have to give her the kitten?

She burst into tears all over again.

"Oops," was all he could say.


	21. Duty

_So we're closer to the DVD/Blu-Ray/Whatever release! Because this one theatre in Backroads' town FINALLY stopped showing the movie as of this past Friday and there doesn't seem to be any other historical community theaters or libraries or college functions showing it, so we take this as a good sign!_

* * *

Fishlegs found himself really wishing that he had spent more time during the years growing up acquainting himself with the ways of females. Humans females, to be more precise, as the habits of female dragons was comfortably familiar to him. But lately he was finding that information was pretty much useless when it came to living with one of human specimens of females. And there he had been thinking he had been doing pretty well. He had adjusted himself to the notion that Ruffnut was crazy and unpredictable and had attempted to act accordingly with fair results.

Now another factor had been inserted into the equation, and he found that he had no strategy for dealing with it or her.

Pregnancy. Ruffnut had been pregnant. And now she wasn't. And Fishlegs had no idea which of those concepts terrified him more. Obviously he would have to get past the terror before he could intelligently deal with either, but it was like being thrown out in front of a giant malicious dragon without any prior knowledge of any of its more important stats—and he had never been good around giant malicious dragons even with knowledge about them.

He had no idea what it was supposed to do with either piece of information. He had tried his best, sat with Ruffnut, had been nice to her, had taken care of her. Those had all seemed nice, had correlated with some instincts that had climbed out of nowhere, and Ruffnut had yet to kill him for doing those things, so he couldn't have been completely on the wrong track. He just hated inching out into the unknown and figuring out things as they happened. That was not how his mind worked. But at least the feedback so far was not negative.

Ruff was oddly quiet after it. She wasn't throwing things or bursting into hysterical tears, at least not in front of him, but she was quiet. And Fishlegs was aware enough to know that was unusual for her. She didn't seem particularly sad, just quiet. Which maybe did mean sad, he wasn't sure. He still could not read her. Or any girl, for that matter, which meant even more difficulty. So he had no idea what he was supposed to think of her being oddly quiet. Was it normal? Was it good? Was it bad? Was he supposed to be just as quiet or was he was supposed to say something so it just wasn't two people being quiet?

Sometimes being clueless really sucked.

Maybe if he knew what he was supposed to be thinking he would have a wondrous insight into how to deal with her. Instead every time he dared think about the situation he was met by a very large mental boulder that radiated panic. He attempted to deal with each concept by itself. Ruff had been pregnant. Because of him. Because of that one time on their wedding night and all that accompanying weirdness. Which would have explained at least some of Ruff's subsequent behaviors. But pregnancy tended to lead to things like babies and that was a terrifying concept in its own right. But all of those concepts of terrifying natures were now null and void and now what was terrifying were their absences. How was that logically possible? How could something and its non-existence both be equally petrifying?

A small part of him wanted to pretend it had never happened. That alternate world where there had been no pregnancy and no miscarriage was a world he could process. Except it wasn't that way and he knew it and there was no sense in pretending otherwise and things went badly and bizarre in alternate universes anyway. Everyone knew that.

So he eventually decided that the best thing to would be to take a deep breath, process what he could, and focus his attention on the more concrete situation of Ruffnut even if that put him right back in the vicious circle of having no insight into the situation. But at least she was more than just thoughts in his head.

Finally he decided that he did not like her being so oddly quiet. He had known her pretty much his entire life, so it was a reasonable observation that Ruffnut being quiet was not normal for her. It was abnormal, and abnormal usually meant bad, or at least warranting concern. Even more, the quietness did not suit her at all. And it did not sit well with him.

Unfortunately he had yet to master the art of talking to her. It was tragic because if she were not talking and should be talking the obvious solution would be to get her talking and one of the better ways to realize such a goal was to initiate a conversation—a social skill he had never quite honed. But apparently it was a skill that was necessary for living with Ruffnut. He was her husband, which meant it was his duty and responsibility to make sure she was happy. And she wasn't.

He tried. When she had wanted to return to the house, he had taken her there, just like she had said. He had tried to make her comfortable. Handing her the kitten had not been the smartest thing he could have done, but he had done it with good intentions. All he wanted was that she would be okay. He had listened attentively to everything her mother had said with full confidence she knew what she was talking about. His own mother had died in childbirth so he knew whatever Stormbite said were valid and intelligent things.

By the next day, however, Ruffnut was not content to rest. She was awake before he was, busying herself with whatever she could find with which to busy herself. She said things like "good morning" and "hi" and other perfectly normal lines. The most abnormal thing was that she was actually awake in the evenings, either fighting food in the cooking area or walking outside in the snow or sharpening weapons. Which were normal things, so maybe it wasn't abnormal but good. And at those times she would smile at him and say something normal like "hi". But she didn't say much more than those. Yes. Quiet. It was wrong.

So he tried. He would say hi back, or another appropriate response to another perfectly normal line. He even asked how he she was feeling, to which she would respond with a shrug and a half-hearted "fine". It was the most inspired question he could think of, yet did not strike him as being enough.

It wasn't just day. He had almost adjusted to Ruff's habit of squeezing every nerve and drop of blood from his arm as she slept because he had never thought it could get worse. It could. He couldn't define just how it was physically possible to get worse, but he was pretty sure he was going to be sporting a bruise on his arm or even a broken bone from her. He almost wished she would just once again sleep on the other edge of the bed. But in the light of all that happened it just didn't seem appropriate to say anything or shove her off. Maybe he was supposed to like the idea of a pretty girl like Ruffnut clinging to him. And he did like it. Except that it physically hurt. He didn't like that part. But the only response he could think of that was in accordance with his plan to make her happy was to try to ignore it.

Apparently it was just a part of marriage.

Then something happened that threw him for another loop altogether. One evening he found her reading a book. One of his books. Of that he was sure, unless Ruff had a secret collection of books that included volumes that happened to be identical to his. Which he doubted, because bookmaking and bookbinding were not easy things that churned out look-alikes. So therefore it was Ruffnut sitting with her back against the bed, book in her lap, book open, her eyes intently on the pages. Which was evidence enough to suggest she was reading it.

Immediately he forgot about the pressing desire to make sure she was okay and happy. Bewilderment tended to make him forget things. All that was left was pure amazement and curiosity. "What are you doing?"

It was a full second before she looked up. "Reading. Duh."

So he had been right with that major assumption. It hadn't been one of the assumptions in the back of his mind pertaining to her plotting destruction or whatever someone like her could manage to do with a book. Fishlegs took a deep breath and remembered that he was supposed to be making sure she was happy. How did her reading a book fit into that? Was it good or bad? How was he supposed to react? The last thing he wanted to do was make her upset. "Oh."

She watched him for a few long moments with that studious look he still couldn't comprehend before looking back at the book. "I can read, you know. I learned runes like everybody else."

Had he said she hadn't? Had he ever thought that? Suddenly he wasn't sure. Her accusing tone apparently had a way of causing him to doubt himself. Was she mad? If she were, how was he supposed to respond in accordance to making her happy? "I never said you couldn't."

"I'm not illiterate. I read. Occasionally. At times."

He nodded. She didn't seem mad, just in need of clarifying information. Nothing wrong with that.

And she was talking. That hit him hard. She had said several phrases already, and in that dry tone that was so characteristic of her. That was good. Right?

"It's the dragon manual," she continued. "According to Hiccup it's really outdated, but I gotta say I get really annoyed when he goes off on dragon lies. It's almost annoying as you are with dragon stats. He's right, it probably should be completely rewritten, if anyone cared about stuff like that. But the gory stuff is way cool, I will admit that." She turned a page. Further evidence she was really reading. Then she glanced back up, eyes narrowed. "Fishlegs, why are you staring at me?"

He had been staring at her. Oops. "No reason." Now feeling awkward, he sat down next to her. "You know you just said more in the past minute than you have said in four days?"

She sighed and slammed the book. "I don't bother you this much when you're reading, do I?"

He considered saying "sometimes" but decided against it. "Um…" Terrible answer.

"I happen to have some change in my speech patterns and you go nuts."

She was mad. And he had been trying to be so careful. Make her happy, not make her mad. He had failed. But maybe it wasn't too late, maybe he could fix this. He put up his hands defensively. "No, no! I was just… just saying that. I mean it's good."

She continued to glare. Her glares were like stone, like having a staring contest with a rocky cliff. "It's good that I have some changes in my speech patterns? Is that what you're saying?"

Total failure. Maybe he should just leave. Except maybe that would make her mad. "It's good that you're talking again!" He squeezed his eyes shut in fear. "I was worried!"

He half-expected to be slugged, but no fist came. Cautiously he opened his eyes. She looked significantly less mad.

"Oh," she said. "I see what you're saying. Nice." A pause. "Thanks."

He heaved a sigh of relief. Okay. Save. Good. Which line that he had said had done it? "Thanks for what?"

The glare returned. "For being worried, you idiot."

Oh. That made sense. He had been worried. "Of course I was worried. You can go back to reading if you want. Sorry I interrupted."

She shrugged and glanced at the book. "Eh, I don't feel like reading it anymore."

Which to Fishlegs suggested that she wanted to do something else. But she didn't move.

Apparently talking didn't mean she was altogether fine. He tried not to stare at her, but he couldn't help it. "Are you okay?"

She shrugged again. "I'm fine, I guess."

Of course she would say that. But she was talking. Which was one goal met. Maybe he should continue with that. She was talking, now he needed to make her happy. That was his duty. He pulled his gaze from her and stared at the floor. Much more comfortable than staring at her. "Do you want to talk about it?"

He really hoped he wouldn't have to clarify "it". The thought was terrifying enough without voicing more details.

"I said I'm fine!" she snapped.

"But you also said you guessed you were fine."

She sighed and stared at the ceiling. "What part of it do you want to talk about?"

"That's not fair. I asked you first."

"Fishlegs, there's a lot involved in it. If you're asking me if I want to talk about something, you're going to have to be a lot more specific."

So this was all turned back on him. Oh well. Duty. He shook his head and tried to think of a specific detail. "So you were going to tell me." He sighed. This was hard. "That you were… pregnant."

Ruffnut brought her gaze down to him and nodded. "Yeah, I was. Like the night before. And there was another time. But I totally meant to tell you."

How would he have reacted if she had? He couldn't image that now. "How long did you know?"

She pulled her knees into her chest. "Awhile. My mom's a midwife. I know the signs. I first suspected that night when you were out doing your weird star thing, if that's what you're asking."

He remembered. Her acting all weird and running back inside the house. "Oh."

They were both silent a long time. And motionless. It went to the point where either one of the dragons need to break out of hibernation and run chaotically into the house or on of them needed to do something. Fishlegs considered how comparatively well it was going. She was talking. His awkward questions were sort of working. Obviously he should ask another one. If he could phrase it right. If he wanted to think about it himself. "Did… you want a baby?"

She nodded. "Yeah, I did. I know that's completely crazy, but I did. At first I was freaked and shocked but then I liked the idea and I was even excited, really excited, and then next thing I know it's all over and it really sucks. So everyone in the village thinks I'm crazy but there's a lot of other crazy women who have babies. And isn't that what's supposed to happen? People get married and have babies and so on goes the Berk population. Nothing wrong with that. So, yes, I did want the baby."

Fishlegs suddenly found himself scared she would start crying again.

But instead she kissed him quickly and briefly on the mouth. "Thanks for the talk."

He was never going to get used to her random kisses. Why did she give them? He knew he definitely liked them, but that one didn't even give him a chance to kiss back. "Ruff—"

She picked the book back up. "Quiet. I feel like reading again."


	22. A Conversation with Tantrum

Ruffnut knew she was being impossible. After seventeen years, it was fairly expected that she be aware of what she did when she was impossible; in fact, it was necessary to raising being impossible to an art form. By this time, of course, being impossible was a natural instinct, but she did know the signs. It wasn't subconscious.

It just happened to be really fun to watch Fishlegs awkwardly stumble over every weird thing she did. Was it so very wrong to increase the weirdness? Was it so very wrong to delight in his discomfort? Probably, but she didn't care. Obnoxiously teasing people was what she did, and what normal person could resist his befuddled reactions?

There had been so much else to think about as of late that thinking about Fishlegs was sort of pushed to the back of her mind. But now that the stinging that had overpowered her body was slowly lessening she could afford some focus to things more trivial. Like the fact that Fishlegs was kind of cute. And the fact that such cuteness was working against him. And that every random mood swing she had terrorized him.

Maybe that's what kept her being so impossible. No matter how upset she felt, she couldn't help but silently laugh at Fishlegs' reactions. Those were the only things that seemed to be getting her through the days.

She supposed it meant she still liked him. She was pretty sure she did. Whenever she took a moment to really think about it she came to the conclusion she still felt about the same about him as she had when she had first confessed the whole thing to Astrid. Maybe even more. It was hard not to feel strongly about a guy who held your hand for five hours. Or went super protective and worrisome, which was a strange combination of annoying, necessary, and sweet.

Gods, she had never felt more horribly girly than she had the past month. Was that just how it went with being married?

Except the marriage was still awkward. Or maybe she was just noticing how awkward it was, which brought up the question of how awkward it would have been had the miscarriage not happened. Or the pregnancy. Now there were two mysterious timelines: one where Fishlegs had never gotten her pregnant and they had gone on like they had been doing before the pregnancy, and the other where the pregnancy had stayed and she had told him and, well, she wasn't sure what would have happened after that. She should ask Fishlegs. Weren't weird multiple possibility-filled universes his stupid interest? The trick was bringing that up to him. Not only did she know how to correctly word such a question, she could barely speak to him. She felt… tongue-tied, which was a weird sensation for her. She had never been tongue-tied in her life until she got married. Now, she could barely speak a word to Fishlegs. Which continued the awkwardness.

It was almost more thinking than her female brain could handle. She was sad over the miscarriage and could not get it out of her head. She really liked a guy to whom she happened to be married and was clueless on what to do about that. She also wanted to smack the same guy every time he asked in a meek voice how she was doing. Or kiss him. She wasn't sure on that, either; she just knew it was the one of the two. And on top of all that, she had to deal with a giddy Astrid who would be married in a matter of days.

Ruff tried to be logical about it. Fishlegs usually tried to be logical. Weird logic that made no sense, to be sure, but perhaps he had a point. She couldn't do anything about losing the baby. So was she just supposed to shove that aside? Easier said than done. She couldn't stop thinking about it.

She liked Fishlegs, but had no idea how to get that across to him. She had kissed him a few times while he had never initiated a kiss. She was less mean to him. Apparently all her other flirting talents had gone out the window with the wedding, and Fishlegs was as daft as they came. So what else was she supposed to do? Keep up the kissing until the concept sunk through his thick skull?

Then there was Astrid. Well, in a few days Astrid would be married and she would finally stop acting like such a sunny nightmare. There. One problem logically solved.

Logic wasn't doing much good for the other problems.

So Ruff did what she usually did. Shrugged off what she could, went about her business, and continued to annoy people. Namely Fishlegs, though that was mostly natural. Somehow she tended to be more irritating to people she really liked.

And she really did like Fishlegs.

She wasn't sure why. He was this enormous oaf with more brains that bravery, a balance not exactly suitable for Viking life, but at least he had the muscle to balance it out. He was weird beyond weird and made no sense half the time. But he was nice, way nice, and maybe the odd things he said amused her. There was some entertainment value in weird phrases.

Well, as long as she had some possible reasons for liking him.

* * *

Ruff was already sick of winter. How many more months would it take? She hated being cold, and she hated how fiercely Fishlegs would get the fire going. There was no happy medium between hot and cold. And winter was boring. Food had been packed up aplenty for the months ahead, and it was easier to fill the water jug with snow and let it melt next to the exuberant fire. With the dragons hibernating in their snowy caves, there weren't even giant pesty lizards to make life interesting. She tried to remember what she had done in past winters, but besides whitewashing Tuffnut's face in the snow repeatedly her mind was a blank.

Granted, now that she was no longer pregnant, throwing her brother into the snow was a perfectly acceptable option, but she still had no interest in that. It had been only a week since the miscarriage, and even fun things failed to sound fun. Between that and going through Fishlegs' books, it would up the latter. She could spend up to an hour at a time reading them. They were boring enough to match her mood. She could curl up at the side of the bed, Kisa in her lap, and try to figure out just what in Hel's name Fishlegs saw in these.

She was skimming a history of the island when the door burst open in a storm of white and Tantrum marched inside.

"Hi!" Tantrum said with a beam.

At least it wasn't twitterpated Astrid. And it wasn't every day one of the weirdest girls in Berk barged into your house. Ruff put down the book. "Uh, hi. What are you doing here?"

Tantrum's smile went even bigger until her smile could have stretched right off of her face. "I've decided that I'm in love with your brother."

"Tuff?" Not that she had any more brothers, but she had to be sure. Tuffnut wasn't that great of a catch.

"Yes," Tantrum said with a pathetic sigh.

Okay, so instead of twitterpated Astrid she had twitterpated Tantrum. At least Ruff knew how to deal with Astrid. This girl was something else altogether. Was the book she had just set down heavy enough to use as a weapon if anything became too disgusting? Ruff figured it could at least stun Tantrum long enough for her to get to a sword. But for the moment, Tantrum was distracting, so Ruff played along. "Yeah, I knew you already kind of liked him. But you're in love with him now?"

Tantrum nodded and brushed snow from her red curls. "Yes, I decided it this morning. I thought I deeply cared for Snotlout, but now I know I am destined by Freya herself to be with Tuff. I mean, I like rocks, his name is a type of rock. It's meant to be."

It certainly was, Ruffnut though with a grin before wondering if she should be on her brother's side. "Does he love you?"

"He just hasn't realized it yet, but I know he does." Tantrum plopped down next to Ruff and sighed again, her giant blue eyes shining. "Just this morning he yelled at me. Screamed at me, really. He said that if I didn't stay away from him he'd chop me into little pieces and feed me to the crows. Such fiery passion! Snotlout never said anything quite so poetic!"

Wow, but the girl was as daft as Fishlegs. Ruff cleared her throat. Maybe recent events were turning her soft and even helpful. Damn. "You do know that means he can't stand you?" She tried to be nice about it, advice between girls, but she braced herself for a bad reaction.

But to her surprise, Tantrum just scoffed and spoke in the most sane voice Ruff had ever heard from her. "Please. I grew up in this village just like you. Batting your eyes at a boy doesn't do what it used to. If you want someone to not just notice you, but remember you and have you stuck in his mind, you have to drive him nuts. Yes, I know he can't stand me, but that is so much stronger and therefore so much than a weak little crush." She turned her head to study Ruff. "Does that make sense?"

"It actually does," Ruff said slowly. It was practically her own philosophy reworded and put to so much more practical use. "And it works?"

Tantrum nodded. "Five years ago, I totally made that Dogsbreath kid mad over me. He spent four months running whenever he saw me coming, and after that he couldn't live without me. It was wonderful. So yes, it does work. How else did you make Fishlegs fall in love with you?"

Whoa. Way too intense a conversation involving answers Ruff did not have. She would have to deliver an insult to ruin this girly bonding time. "Um…"

But Tantrum was back to her silly dreamy sighing. "But now I have another love. Your brother. I just thought you should know."

"And that's why you're here?"

Tantrum stood up. "Yes. And…"

That did not sound good. "And? And what?"

Tantrum put a finger to her cheek thoughtfully. "Well, I sort of spread a rumor I was going to be at his house… and after that several specific places looking for him, so I'm betting he might come here to hide."

Ruff immediately saw where this was going. And at least she was no longer being asked about Fishlegs. She gestured at the bed. "Hide under it."

"Thanks. I was just about to ask." Tantrum rolled under the bed.

Sure enough, ten minutes later, it was Tuff's turn to burst through the door. "Hide me," he demanded.

Feigning innocence was easy. "From who?" Ruff asked. She had the book back in her lap and was lazily stroking Kisa, who purred away.

"Squirrels," Tuff replied dryly. "They think I'm nuts. Tantrum! Who else would I be hiding from?"

Wow. Tantrum was incredibly good at this. Ruff nodded. This was a wonderful distraction. "Ah. Your stalker girl. Of course you can hide here. What are sisters for?"

"Thanks." He sunk into a chair and dropped his head to the table with a relieved sigh.

"You can't stand her, can you?" Ruff asked.

He shook his head. "I wish she'd go back to liking Snotlout. Or get married to him. I can't put up with her. She's everywhere. Talking to me. Baking me things."

"Do you eat what she bakes?"

He lifted his head and looked at her in surprise. "Or course. The girl can really bake. But it's the principle of the thing!"

"Principle of what? Baking? I didn't know there were so many ethics involved."

Tuff groaned and put his hand to head. "I can't stop thinking about her. I'm terrified for my life. She's always around. I can barely sleep, I can barely eat—"

"Except what she bakes you," Ruff pointed out.

"I just need a few measly moments where she can't find me and I don't have to think about her. Distract me. You claim to be more irritating. So distract me."

"You're ugly," she said helpfully.

He sighed again. "Thanks, but that's not cutting it."

"You're as ugly as a troll's butt after he's sat in thorns."

"Still not enough."

She pushed the book off of her lap. "You could redirect your attention to me."

He looked at her, expression serious. "Sorry."

Wow, an apology.

He continued. "So how are you doing? How are you feeling? Mom wants to know."

Those questions. Everyone in the village asked her those. She rolled her eyes. "I'm fine."

"What kind of fine? Faking it fine or really fine?"

She considered it. "A little of both."

"That works for me." He turned to stare at the weapon display.

For a long time she looked at it with him, thinking about when Tantrum planned to make her move as well as other things. Finally, she asked "Can I ask you a question?"

"You just did, but shoot. When was the last time these were sharpened?"

"I have no idea. Do you know if Fishlegs likes me?"

Now Tuff's stare was back on her, looking rather horrified. "Why would you ask me that?"

She shrugged, somewhat regretting having asked, but it was too late. "I don't know. Do guys talk about that kind of thing?"

"Not really!" Tuff looked as if this were the worst subject on earth. "Don't you know? He's your husband!"

"Yeah, but…" She had nothing else to say, but fortunately at that moment, as if to save her, Tantrum barreled out from under the bed.

"Hi, Tuff!" she shrieked.

Tuff shot Ruff a look declaring harsh vengeance. "You let her in?"

Ruff smiled and shrugged.

Tantrum quickly glanced at her with a smile. "Had to save you from that," she whispered. "And thanks. I owe you."

Tuff was already at the door, struggling with the doorknob, but Tantrum was a very good runner.


	23. The Other Wedding

Hiccup actually seemed excited about his wedding. Odd. Then again, maybe Fishlegs' experience had been the odd one and men were supposed to feel excited about nuptials. Hiccup also had less time to adjust to the idea of marriage due to the fact that no one had bothered to tell him until several weeks after the betrothal, so maybe the excitement was simply still fresh. Or maybe it was that Hiccup had been crazy about Astrid for like six years. Fishlegs was pretty sure that helped.

As in keeping with Hiccup's good mood, the few days before the wedding were uncharacteristically sunny and clear, so much that half the citizens of Berk were terrified the gods were fiddling with the weather and would soon unleash the most horrific storm Berk had ever seen. But Hiccup wasn't terrified. Hiccup was thrilled. Of course he was thrilled. He was getting married to the smart, pretty, sweet girl of his dreams. He had not had to dig through some ancestor's rotting barrow for a sword because his dad conveniently happened to have one. Though apparently it was uncustomary for him to make Astrid's sword, he probably got to send Gobber hints on what it should look like, how big it should be, and all those other obnoxious details that went into swords.

Why did everything have to go right for Hiccup?

It was not as if Fishlegs particularly cared. If Hiccup was happy, well, that was great for him. Awesome. And he should be happy. He was madly and disgustingly in love with Astrid and Astrid was madly and disgustingly in love with him. They were perfect for each other. Everyone in the village said so. Fishlegs was happy for both of them. It was a great match.

Yet there was something about the whole situation that gnawed away at Fishlegs, and the more he tried to think about just what it was the more bewildered he became and the more that something bit. He tried to ignore it, but that only sort of worked. Maybe he needed to practice on ignoring things.

Except ignoring things was hard work, and at the time he did not dare ignore anything Ruffnut did. She was constantly on his mind, putting him in a state of apprehension, fear, and irritation because worrying about her was not something which upon he wanted to obsess. But he had to because he was her husband and that was his job and he would feel even more horrible if he weren't worrying about her.

He did not know what any of that had to do with that slight icky feeling with the whole Hiccup and Astrid marriage. But for some reason it was the first thought that popped into his head after he spent an hour thinking on why the wedding idea got to him. Every time.

The morning of the wedding was even brighter and clearer than the other days, if that were possible. Hel, it was somehow bright and clear even in the early morning before the sun had risen. It was the first thing Fishlegs noticed when his eyes snapped open and looked to the windows and smoke hole. Early morning darkness, still a few stars, despite the fact it was impossible it was still bright and clear. Figured.

Maybe a blizzard would move in.

But it wasn't a good thing to think. Hiccup and Astrid were his friends, and this was their day. Just because his own wedding had been less than ideal did not mean he had to be mentally scarred about others.

He looked over at Ruff, who was still asleep with her hair everywhere. She had decided to wash it the day before, and it was still slightly damp. She had let go of his arm sometime in the night (which meant his arm was slightly less numb) and was curled up into ball, blankets pulled up to her chin. It was… cute. Okay, so maybe their wedding hadn't been so bad if it resulted in sights like that.

At that moment he was struck by the question of just how long he had been sleeping in the same bed with her and how weird a concept it was. Had he already become so used to it? Apparently he had, and had done so weeks and weeks ago. Now here he was, somewhat fascinated by the idea and staring at the other participant in it.

The next thing that struck him was another idea. Perhaps he should kiss her. Why not? He liked kissing, she was asleep and probably wouldn't notice, she was after all married to him, and she did it to him anyway. It was only fair he should kiss her.

Except… except the idea froze in his mind. It was Ruff. And he did like her, never had said he hadn't. But kissing her? He might like kissing and he might like her and he might like anything else that went along those lines, but wasn't it a bit much? The last time he had kissed her first had been their wedding night and the morning after had not been very good at all. He had no desire to repeat that. And he had no idea what she was thinking when she kissed him. Besides, if you only liked someone, what exactly did kissing suggest? He knew he was overthinking it and every Viking male would laugh him out of the village if they knew what he was thinking, but…

While he was overthinking, Ruffnut yawned and opened her eyes. She stared back at him for a few seconds, then snapped "What are you staring at?"

He turned his eyes away. "Nothing."

She pushed the covers away and gathered up her hair for fixing. "You are so weird sometimes. No, make that all the time."

Weird. Yes. If only she knew what he had been thinking. He cleared his throat and climbed from the bed. "Are you feeling okay today?"

She paused in the middle of a braid and rolled her eyes with a little too much drama. "Yes. I'm fine. Do you see me sobbing into my pillow right now?"

Granted, she had been talking a lot more over the past few days. He shook his head.

"Good. For a second there I was worried you were blind. Which would possible explain the staring thing. Except you wouldn't be staring if you were blind. Just focusing your pathetic useless eyes in a random direction while praying for a miracle from the gods."

"Do you say that to actual blind people?" he asked.

"If I caught one doing what you did, yeah, I probably would, tact be damned." She twisted her braids into a knot and hopped from the bed, pulling off her nightdress as she did. It was like she didn't care that he saw her without clothes, though he instinctively lowered her eyes as she dressed for the day. She did look amazing. "Fix yourself some breakfast. I have to get over to Astrid's."

Frigg and Freya. Ruff was actually excited about the wedding.

* * *

Astrid was actually excited about her own wedding. Ruff had a hard time believing that, but there Astrid was, smiling and beaming and not looking a bit like she had just crawled out of bed.

Which she had not.

"I couldn't sleep!" she exclaimed to every woman in the room as she practically dove into the washtub that had been set out for her. "I couldn't at all. I lay awake all night, which I know is not healthy and leaves the senses dulled, but I just couldn't sleep!"

"And you won't tonight," Phlegma said with a knowing laugh that was echoed by every other woman except Ruff. Oh, great. This talk. Again.

Was Ruff supposed to be a part of it?

Well, she was here, wasn't she? Part of the whole stupid ensemble of married women who were supposed to give Astrid advice and tips and wisdom Couldn't she just be part of helping Astrid get ready? Except she did not even want to be doing that. Right now Astrid was not the Astrid she knew. That Astrid was smart and cool and practical, not this giddy lovey-dovey mess. Ruff wanted nothing more than to give her friend a good solid punch in the face. The Astrid she knew would appreciate it. Eventually. At some point, she would say "Thank-you, Ruff. I needed that." But right now Astrid did not know what she needed. Which, of course, led right back to Astrid being punched in the face. It could be great, a priceless wedding day bridal-preparation moment with all these witnesses and maybe the tub completely upended with aphrodisiac-laden water spilt everywhere.

But Ruff never did such a thing, as much as she wanted to. She blamed Fishlegs. Living with him had made her boring. Fretting over the baby loss had made her boring and slightly sensitive. So she did nothing and said nothing, just stood by as Astrid had half her skin scrubbed off while all the other women, Astrid's mother included, went on and on about housekeeping and pleasing husbands and being good wives and various sexual positions and challenges until the words became a timeless fog for Ruffnut.

She wasn't sure how it happened, but she suddenly found herself alone with Astrid in Astrid's room with only the vague memory of Astrid saying something and pulling her aside.

Astrid was still beaming, and smelt strongly of winter herbs. She sat down on her bed, pulling Ruff with her.

"Ruff, I have to ask you something," she said in that serious Astrid voice.

Wow. Had she come to her senses already? Somehow Ruff doubted that. "Didn't you hear enough already from everyone else?"

Astrid nodded. "Yes, but those women are all… old."

Oh gods. Ruff braced herself. "Um… what do you want to ask?"

Astrid took a deep breath. "Sex."

Ruff hadn't braced herself enough.

"Making love," Astrid elaborated. "All of that."

This wasn't happening. "Again, didn't you get enough of that from everyone else?"

"Once more, they're old. And you're my age and my friend. And yes, my mom explained everything a few years ago, but I want to hear what you have to say."

Sitting on the bed was suddenly very uncomfortable and the room was stiflingly hot. Ruff stared down at the floor. "Uh, last time I said anything you said you didn't want to hear about it."

"Well, now I do." Astrid squeezed the last bit of water from her hair. "Look, I know this is really embarrassing, but I just want to be… ready. And I know this is probably a hard topic for you since you lost the baby and everything, but… what's good, when you're with Fishlegs?"

It was the weirdest position she had been in for awhile. There was Astrid, waiting so expectantly, and Ruffnut unable to think of a single response.

Then Astrid laughed. "Sorry. I really shouldn't have thrown that at you. Too awkward?"

Ruff shook her head. They were fair questions. Probably discussed by most women. "No, it's just…"

Astrid waited, still smiling.

Well, she might as well say it. "It was only the one time on the wedding night."

Astrid's smile faded. "Oh. Okay. Sorry. I just assumed…"

"Just assumed what?"

Astrid sighed and shook her head. "Well, the other week when you were spilling to me that you really liked him, I guess I just thought…. Wow. Sorry I asked."

But she had asked and now it was out in the open. "I kind of said some things the next morning. Things that weren't very nice… things he might have taken the wrong way. It's all probably my fault."

Astrid's eyes widened. "Like you insulted him?"

Ruff thought about it. "Kind of. It… it was kind of an awkward morning. Very weird."

"Oh. Yeah, I guess it could be weird. I never thought of that." Her smile returned. "But how was it? Besides weird?"

How was it? What kind of question was that? Apparently a normal one! Ruff tried to think. It had been… a few months already. "It was… all right. Okay, I guess. What I suppose I expected. But I suppose it would get better, less weird. I mean, with practice. And repetition."

Astrid nodded. What an attentive audience. "Uh huh. And it started… how?"

Again with the thinking. "Um… we started kissing. There was a lot of kissing. A little talking, but mostly kissing. This was after all the crazy people outside went away. So, yeah, kissing, and then we were a little more horizontal and for some odd reason I had completely ripped off my nightgown prior to this so that helped things out and I did like him even then and I wasn't minding it then or anytime before so I guess it was enjoyable if really super weird. There was this part where he kind of banged his shoulder on the headboard that kind of messed things up for a few seconds but other than that…" Was this really coming out of her mouth? "Yeah, that's about it. It was good." She hesitated, hoping Astrid would say something. "Is this helping?"

But Astrid just grinned—rather darkly. "Actually, I just wanted to hear what you would say. But, yes, it's helping."

"And you didn't want to hear earlier."

"I guess things change. You still like him, though? Right?"

Ruffnut paused before answering. Yes. Weirdly enough, yes. "Yeah, I do." She forced a smile. "But enough about me." Oh, she was done with this conversation. "We need to get you ready to get married!"

* * *

It was like the ceremony itself would never start. How much stuff needed to be done? The sun had been up for several hours and it seemed to Fishlegs that there would be no end of all the weird pre-wedding things. If the ceremony would just start, it would then eventually end and so would the day. Fishlegs could then put the day with its accompanying whatever-it-was-that-bothered-him behind him and life in Berk would move on as normal.

But it wasn't ending. It was just continuing. He barely remembered all of this "man" stuff on his wedding day but he supposed it must have happened. He did have vague images in his head of all this "lesson" stuff. Hadn't he followed it? He was taking care of Ruff.

And taking care of one's wife was included in all the stuff currently being said to Hiccup. Which was noble, among the other noble things said by Stoick and a few other village men who apparently were entrusted to preach these things. Fishlegs had heard them. Sort of. He really hadn't been paying attention when it had been his turn. Well, whatever he had heard, he was listening to it again while wishing the day would just get on with itself.

"Your wife is now your responsibility."

"It's your job to protect her and take care of her and let her take care of you."

"Women are completely crazy. Accept this, realize they are all crazy, and then swallow it and give into the craziness. Listen to them."

"Allow your wife to do whatever she wants with the home… and allow her to do whatever she wants in the home."

"Even if you know for a fact she's not right, tell her she is."

"Women liked to be touched except for when they don't. Be affectionate. Kiss. Cuddle."

"Don't just go at it with no thought for her."

The advice and the talking just went on and on. More than anything Fishlegs wanted to dive into some happy corner of his mind and review the latest dragon stats, maybe ponder on how winter hibernation affected those. But every time he tried to zone out, he wound up listening.

The next thing he knew, it was over and he was standing with probably the entire village in the snow on a perfect winter day where the sky was a cozy ice blue and the sun was shining. And Ruff had located him and was standing next to him.

"They sure look happy," she muttered.

He nodded. "Maybe they're faking it?"

That got her to smile. "Nah. Have you not spoken to either of them? They're all about this. They're delighted. Idiots."

He swallowed back his laugh. Laughing was probably inappropriate in the middle of a goat sacrifice where a goat wasn't even slaughtered. What exactly did the gods think of that? "Just watch. They'll wake up in a few days and completely freak out."

"No, it's deeper than that. A week or two."

"You're on. Winner gets to pick a weapon."

People were shooting them dirty looks. Apparently they were spoiling the wedding, though Astrid and Hiccup didn't seem to notice.

Not that it stopped a few more remarks when the swords were exchanged.

Time sped up after that. The ceremony ended and the wedding feast began in Meade Hall. Everything went perfectly. What else could be expected for Astrid and Hiccup? Fishlegs found himself wishing something would go wrong. Not wrong enough to kill or maim someone, but just something to make a dent on the special day.

Since when had he started thinking such cruel thoughts?

But no such luck on the dent. Hiccup carried Astrid into the hall, no tripping whatsoever. Everything else went swimmingly, and before he knew it Fishlegs was having fun. Perhaps it was the sheer party mood. Perhaps it was the fact that Ruff looked like she was having fun and being happy. Perhaps it was watching Tantrum carefully divide her time and attention equally between Snotlout and Tuffnut. Both seemed overly annoyed.

But he still was glad when it was finally over.

* * *

Ruff's head buzzed. She really needed to learn how to handle mead better. This feeling after one mug. At least she could think. At least she could walk. She hoped that was correct and not just her own perception. She had seen Fishlegs down at least three mugs and he seemed perfectly fine. Well, it probably took a lot of get such a big guy drunk.

"Fun day," he said as they approached the house. Yes, he was completely sober.

She nodded. "Yeah." She pulled the fur closer around her. "Now we can finally stop having to watch their stupid hand affairs. So gross." He was watching her again. He watched her a lot lately, had done so ever since the miscarriage. "What?"

"Are you cold?"

"I'm warm enough to get inside. We're only a few meters away, genius."

"If you're sure."

The night was quite pretty. Ruff took it in, the distant sound of late revelers, the moonlight on the snow, every star in the sky twinkling above. What a perfect day and night for a wedding. She stopped.

So did Fishlegs. "Are you okay?"

She sighed. "You need to stop asking that. It's distracting."

He frowned. Amazing how she could see his face in the darkness. "Distracting from what?"

Her crazy idea, for one thing. She sighed again and started. "I have an idea. I want you to carry me into the house."

He took a step backwards. "What? Why?"

"The threshold. You know. Of the house." It sounded stupid even to her ears. "I know it's not the hall and I know we kind of blew it back then and probably cursed ourselves. Which is why I think we should do it again."

Now he just looked confused. "But we're already married."

"I know. I'm just saying that we should try it again. Maybe get better luck."

"But it's not even the hall."

Frigg, why did she like him again? "I know!"

He returned to walking, taking bigger strides. "I don't think you can just redo bad luck."

"If we redo it, it won't be bad luck anymore." She hurried to catch up with him.

"I still don't get it."

"Just carry me in!" She had more things to shout at him, but they faded away. Either she wasn't doing a very good job of explaining it or she was wasting her time with him. He really didn't get it. "Never mind. Forget it."

"Wait!" His voice rose to something just below a shout. " I'll do it! I just—"

She shook her head and ran ahead of him to grab the door handle first. "I said never mind!"

She burst into the house and immediately threw wood into the fire pit. There were still a few glowing embers. She blew on them.

Fishlegs slammed the door behind him. "Ruff, what is going on?"

She couldn't even look at him. She was wasting her time. She had joked with him at the wedding, had made fun of things with him, and now this. Was it so much to just want to try again? Was it such a bad idea?

"Ruff, I'm sorry!" He sounded more angry than sorry, which was odd for him. But he did sound sorry. Very sorry. Just angrier.

She ignored him.

"Ruff, come on." He put his hand on her shoulder.

She felt a tingle. Wow. Could she feel a tingle if she were mad at him? But she was mad at him. She turned, ready to yell again.

It didn't happen.

What happened was a kiss, nothing more. Ruff wasn't sure who started it. Had she? Or had he leaned down to meet her? Had they both moved at the same time? It probably didn't matter. It was a good kiss. And it was lasting.

Now what? They were sharing a kiss. What was going to happen next?

Instead there was a loud "mreow!" from Kisa.

Ruff and Fishlegs broke apart to stare at Kisa who was busily wrestling with a rat almost her size.

"She is a good mouser," Fishlegs commented.

Ruff nodded while silently cursing the kitten.

Another moment ruined.


	24. Bad Morning Good Day

Bad morning. Ruffnut had to do nothing but slide into consciousness to know it was a bad morning that would probably precede a bad day. She had expected them after the miscarriage, had dealt with them the best she could in her most surly manner, but it had been over two weeks. Bad mornings were supposed to have stopped, her surly manner have moved onto other things.. She did not want to deal with them. She didn't feel like being moody and miserable. Didn't she have any choice in the matter? Couldn't she just pick and choose how she felt? But there did not seem to be any options against the almost overwhelming wave of sadness that spilled over her, demanding her to cry into her pillow but not even bothering to give her the strength for that. She let go of Fishlegs' arm and considered sitting up. Lying down and bawling was no good for bad mornings. But lying next to him sounded so good. Not to mention the fact that the room was freezing. He was such a handy heat source.

Who would probably notice she was feeling sad as soon as he woke up, which wouldn't be long now.

She was terrified he would ask if she were feeling sad. She quickly sat up and crawled over him to the floor. The wooden floor was freezing against her barefeet. Hel, all of her was freezing now. It was unfair. She wanted to sit in a corner and cry, she wanted to burn down some building, and she was cold. It was definitely a bad morning.

But Viking women didn't have bad mornings. Or if they did, they dealt with them. They didn't show them off. They swallowed it and they went on with life. What were sad feelings in comparison to no food or water because someone teary woman wasn't doing her job? She could cry later. Ruff quickly changed into clothes, pulling on her boots just as Fishlegs woke up.

He was going to look at her. She held her breath and waited. She tried not to look at him, but if she didn't look at him just how was she supposed to know if he was looking at her? If he had any wits about him, he would look at her face and know she wasn't feeling well. He would go irritating worried and bug her for the rest of the day. He would not even have to guess it wasn't a good morning. If she didn't look like happy-psychotic Ruff he would be worried and bug her all day. Her heart skipped a beat at that thought. An actual skipped beat that nearly threw her to the floor. How obnoxiously sweet would it be if he bugged her all day?

She pasted on the biggest fake smile she could. "'Morning." She stared at the fur of her boots. He was watching her, no doubt about it. Her breath quickened.

"Good morning," he replied quietly.

Here it came.

"Are you okay?" he asked next.

And there it was. She stood up and rolled back her shoulders and nodded. "I'm okay." She didn't even sound believable to herself. "Just…" Just what? Still sad over something that happened two weeks ago? Still wanting to hide in a corner worthy of the worst girl in Berk? Did she actually want to say something? Maybe. Sort of. He would listen, at any rate. He could tolerate listening to her. How great would it be if he would listen? Even if he were actually thinking about something else entirely that was probably really stupid, he would act like he was listening and she could spill everything out. That would be nice.

Instead, she nodded. "It's not a big deal. I'm fine."

He nodded, too, but didn't look like he particularly believed her. "Are you?"

No, but she was not about to tell him that. Something else was bothering her, something the initial morning sadness covered up. She had to ignore both. Breakfast. Food. Fishlegs was probably hungry, probably wanted something to eat. He was always up for eating. Maybe if he ere doing that he wouldn't be worrying about her even if she kind of wanted him to. If she were doing that then maybe she could ignore things. "Are you hungry? I haven't made anything yet, I just woke up…"

She hurried over to the cooking area and began to boil water. She almost dropped the pot twice and her hands shook as she grabbed grain for a mash.

He still watched her. Why did he have to do that? Well, he had always been a people watcher for as long as she could remember. So she could give him that. But why did she have to care so much?

Ever since that kiss the other night, she had felt even weirder around him. There had been no more kissing, no mentioning of it, nothing. But it popped into her head constantly.

"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked again. "Because you don't look it. And if you're possessed by some spirit…"

Was he trying to be funny? That wasn't funny. He had no idea how she felt. She glared at him, and the faint smile faded from his face.

The rest of the morning until he left was silent. It was as if he knew better than to ask one more time how she was. Which he should have. She hated it when he asked it, but it was what he was supposed to be doing. Somehow she needed it. Maybe if she could have been mad everytime he asked she wouldn't have started crying the moment she was alone in the house.

She hated crying. Crying was stupid and girly and weak and everything had been two weeks ago. There was no excuse to feel like she did. Bad morning. Stupid awful bad morning where she just could not pick how she felt. She should be able to choose to stop crying.

It was Fishlegs' fault, she decided. It was his fault she had been pregnant in the first place and it was his fault for not having kept asking if she were okay. It was his fault for leaving when he clearly suspected she was not okay.

He drove her nuts.

Was that maybe a small part of the reason she sat by the bed and cried?

At last it was over. She climbed to her feet, feeling more pathetic than she ever had, and rubbed the tears from her eyes. They were red. She should stay inside so no one would see that she had cried.

But she needed to leave the house. She had stuff to do. Water. Food. That was outside. Outside sounded wonderful. She could get exercise and fresh air. And "stuff to do" sounded like the perfect cure.

The air was freezing, the sky covered in solid white. She loved how the air felt on her throat and hated what it did to the remaining tears around her eyes. Now she would look worse than before. But somehow she didn't care. Being outside was the best thing of the day so far. Snow was everywhere, the ocean a perfect silver. It was pretty. Outside she could move, follow a pattern, not really think. Snow was easily melted for water, but going to the spring was more of an action and she liked action. Further to go, more time to move, more time to not think and just appreciate the world.

The pines around the spring were a strong green, striking against the stark white of the snow. Beautiful. And no one was there. Even better. She crouched down in the snow and stared into the water. Steam rose from it in pale waves, promising the spring water was still hot from the earth despite winter.

A few months before she had sat here and had felt nothing but misery. What had that misery been about? Not wanting to get married and be all domestic?

Well, domesticity still sucked and she was pretty miserable now but… she breathed in the chill air and dipped her hand into the water. The heat was wonderful. It wasn't so bad, was it? At least she had something decent to be miserable about this time. The other time had just been stupidity. Yeah, so her parents had made her get married, but it was to a guy who was nice and who worried about her and who liked her and…

…someone she really liked.

She jerked her hand away from the water like it had burned her. Maybe it had. She wasn't thinking clearly enough to notice things, and what Viking really noticed injuries, anyway?

But it wasn't the heat of the spring. She had just realized what had been bothering her that morning.

Fishlegs. Granted, he was always doing something that bothered her, but this was different. She was annoyed just by the thought of him. But it was more than that. If she had been annoyed by the very thought of him she could have just chalked that up to really liking him. There was a cross-over there.

What bothered her was the realization of just how comfortable she was with those thoughts. She was comfortable with the idea of being bothered by him. She was perfectly okay with it. How was that possible? And yet she had come to expect it.

She was no longer even bothered by the idea that she liked him, really liked him. She was fine with it. She was just fine with being around him and having this crush on him and living with him and him caring her and maybe her caring for him.

She stood up quickly and hurried down the hill, water jug still empty. What else had she planned? She couldn't remember. There were too many other thoughts whirling through her brain to think of such minor things.

Those other thoughts were at the same time exciting and boringly comfortable. Exciting and boring were not supposed to go together. She did not do boring. Why was she okay with boringly comfortable?

Okay, so she liked Fishlegs. A lot. She knew that. That was why she was always kissing him, why the kiss the other night had been so neat. She liked him. That was supposed to be purely exciting and nothing else except maybe frustrating and painful.

Except now she didn't think she liked him anymore.

She barely noticed her surroundings as she walked past them. All she could think of was Fishlegs, how weird, annoying, dorky, awkward, oafish, nerdy, and sweet he was. You just didn't like someone like that.

She was in love with him.

* * *

The bad morning was over. Ruffnut was amazed how quickly it was gone. One epiphany for the day and it was like all the bad stuff had been swept away. More energy and adrenaline than she had felt in months was dumped into her. She couldn't stay still. She wanted to move and run and fight. She joined a snowball fight between some young children and wiped them all out. Which was probably a form of bullying, but what did she care? Little kids needed to face brutality early. It was good for him. Made them better warriors. If they couldn't handle a little snow, how could they handle buckets of blood in the future?

She left them, feeling she had done a good deed for the future of the village.

Why Fishlegs? She couldn't answer that to herself. He wasn't the most handsome Viking in the village, but he was cute. She liked that. Really liked that. And she could have been married off to someone much worse. Were these good reasons to be in love with someone? She had no idea, and truthfully she did not care.

She wanted to go to the carpentry shop, but she couldn't focus enough to go there. What would she do if she did go there? Stand around? Mess up his stupid catapult?

Being at home was bad, but darkness came early. But soon enough she discovered thigns in the house she had almost forgotten about. Weapons. All those beautiful weapons she hadn't been allowed to use when she she was pregnant. And the rafters. She wasn't tired, she wasn't sick, so she could climb those and jump around them like nothing. It was fun, it was freeing, and it made her feel horribly guilty about feeling happy she could do it. But oh well. She had already felt sad about the miscarriage that day, she could afford a little fun.

And what was fun was crouching in the rafters above the door with a sword in hand just waiting for Fishlegs to walk in.

Which he soon did. So sweet, so dorky, so unassuming. Well, he had wanted to fight earlier. With a battle cry she jumped down, managing enough force to knock him to the floor with a thud that shook the whole house.

"Ruff!" he exclaimed, pushing her away. "Are you trying to kill me?"

"Maybe." The moment his hand was away she was back on top of him in an effort to keep him grounded. Gods, this was fun. She had missed fighting so much!

"Well, you scared me!" He wrestled the sword from her and threw it across the room.

"You took my sword!" She leaped onto his arm and managed to almost pull him all the way back to the ground.

He threw his arm back up and succeeded in tossing her a few feet away. "What's with you?"

She laughed and sprang at him again. This was fun. He was fun.

This time he was ready for her, even if he still was not completely on his feet. He caught her and rolled, pinning her to the ground.

Thor, he was strong. Or heavy. Or both. She didn't care. He was finally getting it. She twisted out from under him and kneed him in the stomach with enough force that it sent him to the loser position.

But he was quick to retaliate. He grabbed both of her upper arms so she couldn't move and rolled to his knees. Ruff waited for his next move, hoping for something good, something she could work with, but... but instead his hand moved to her hair.

Her first instinct was that this would be a good time to make her move, cause him some pain, and claim victory. But after deciding she was in love with this guy… her next move was to lift up her head and kiss him.

He was thankfully quick enough to kiss back. First in gentle surprise, then harder as the kiss went on.

She put her arms around his neck. He was so big and soft and strong. It was like being with a bear. She kissed him harder still, but soon after that his mouth was moving away from hers and down her check and her neck. She smiled. It felt amazing.

It had been an amazing day.

His hands left her shoulders as he pulled her tighter against him, and she went willingly. This was fun, this was incredible, and she was madly and inexplicably in love.

It turned out hard wooden floors were rather uncomfortable for certain things, but Ruff really did not care. Other things made up for it.


	25. Hel Hath No Fury

Ruffnut was up to something and Fishlegs could not put his finger on any particular detail of the broad scope of things were different. Part of him kept insisting that he should be terrified, at least investigating this situation, but things seemed to be mostly good and he did like good. Even if that good was accompanied by something legitimately strange. One day Ruff was the same old Ruff and the next day she was completely off her rocker and different. But Fishlegs was pretty sure he liked it. How could he not like it when a girl like her was veritably happy to see him? How could he not like it when she was jumping on him with kisses and pulling and pushing him down to the bed or floor or wherever? Yes, that was definitely likable, and she was quite into it.

He still didn't get why. His two major theories were that she was trying to get pregnant again or had just snapped, plain and simple. The latter theory would at least explain the housekeeping. It wasn't like she had ever been grossly untidy, but the state of the house had never seemed to be the first thing on her mind. Now dust was banned from the house, the bed perfectly made with pillows fluffed (though those qualities never seemed to last long), and Ruff had spent one full day carving a broom. A really nice broom. She threw herself into knitting and sewing like they were people to be beat up and yelled at him if he touched anything that wasn't quite finished.

It wasn't bad at all. At least, Fishlegs couldn't think of anything about which to complain. But it was not normal. Had she developed a different type of crazy or was this simply the Ruffnut that had always been behind the violent one who beat up and made fun of people and climbed freakishly high trees? And why did she seem so happy when he was around?

One snowy evening he entered the house to be hit by the strangest combination of smells ranging from the poisonous scent of charred something to something in the range of actually delicious. Even with the acrid stench mixed in it was all in all a pleasant sensation, cozy even. Though perhaps anything seemed cozy after walking through the blizzard that had just struck the island. Fishlegs threw his snow-covered coat into the pile Ruffnut now suddenly insisted on keeping neat and took in the sight of the house.

What appeared to be different themes on some little cake was everywhere. Black coal-like things dotted the floor to be sniffed and licked by the kitten, but the table was covered with versions that looked and smelled more appetizing. Tuffnut sat there, stuffing one into his face with no sign of sickness but rather enjoyment. Ruffnut knelt next to the fire with a pan holding a cake that looked just near perfect. Fishlegs found himself suddenly hungry.

Ruffnut looked at him with a big smile, flipped the cake onto the table with the others, and ran over to Fishlegs to throw her arms around his neck—an action that always made his heart and stomach flip. "I thought you became a human snowman out there!"

"It's just a Berk storm," he replied nervously after she kissed him—he was never going to get used to that, as awesome as it was. And the awesomeness did seem a little weird with Tuffnut in the house. Fishlegs carefully pushed Ruff away. "What… what have you been doing?"

"Baking!" she said with a grin that could only be described as evil. "And I think I got it. It took me all day, but I think the past couple of hours made for a breakthrough. At least that idiot over there thinks so." She gestured at Tuff, who was happily helping himself to another cake.

"It's actually good," he said with a full mouth.

Well, it certainly did not look like Tuff had been force-fed. At least the later versions. "What is it?" Fishlegs asked.

"It was supposed to be bread in the beginning," Ruff replied as she took his hand and pulled him over to the table where she handed him a cake. "But then I started experimenting and throwing things together and I think I made something really cool!"

Fishlegs had dealt too much with Ruff's cooking, but it did smell really good, so he didn't hesitate long before he took a bite. It wasn't bad at all. He nodded his approval as he chewed, and Ruff looked happier than he had ever seen her. "Did you write down what you did?"

"Of course I did. I'm not stupid." She pointed to the wall, where runes had been carved, scratched out, and carved again into the wood. "I'm keeping this recipe!"

"It's still not quite as good as Tantrum's stuff, though," Tuff said after swallowing a particularly large mouthful. "She's really, really good."

Ruff's grin flipped into a frown, and she banged the pan that was probably still hot against Ruff's head.

"Ouch!"

"I don't care what Tantrum bakes like," Ruff said. "If she's not baking for you anymore, you'll obviously have to come to me."

Tuff nodded and rubbed his head.

Ruff smiled again and let the pan drop to the floor. "So what do you think?"

Fishlegs finished the last bite of the cake and brushed away the crumbs. "It was good."

"Really?"

It was truthfully good and he didn't want to be hit with the pan. "Really. But why would you spend the whole day baking?"

She shrugged. "Because it's fun and I figured you'd be hungry. And I didn't just bake. I swept and dusted and alphabetized your books and tried to make a cloak but I think it's just going to be a blanket." She looked up at him expectantly.

Very weird. "Um, thanks. You didn't have to do all of that, too."

"I felt like it." She began arranging the cakes into a pile.

Ruff was infamous for doing whatever she felt like, but Fishlegs still couldn't wrap his head around those choices. "Why?"

The smile remained just as strong, though it was mixed with the familiar "you're such an idiot" gaze. "Why do you think? Isn't it pretty obvious?"

"Uh…" Fishlegs had missed something.

She sighed and scooped up a bunch of the cakes, which she then dumped into Tuff's lap. "These are for you. Hopefully they can make up for the lack of Tantrum's apparently-so-much-better treats. Now leave."

Tuffnut nodded, stuck one into his mouth, and stood up with a muffled "Thanks."

Ruff shook her head after he had disappeared into the swirling vortex of the blizzard. "Apparently Tantrum stopped bringing him things. He's so confused. Like more confused than usual. So I used him to taste test."

That would suck. "Oh." Then Fishlegs remembered he was confused, too. He sat down where Tuff had just been sitting and poked at a cake. "So what's supposed to be obvious?"

She laughed and leaned against the table. "For someone so smart, you really are dense."

Was he supposed to laugh as well? All he knew was that Ruff had a pretty smile and she had baked something rather tasty and was looking at him like she usually did before she shoved him to the floor. Really good, but weird.

She laughed again, then cleared her throat. "Fishlegs, I love you."

He fell out of the chair. That had been the last thing he had expected to hear from her. She was crazy. Completely crazy like one of those people that wandered around the village muttering things about trolls under the breaths.

"Are you okay?" she asked, stepping forward.

If she came too close he was pretty sure she would just jump on him and they would wind up doing what they had been doing lately and he was not in a state to wrap his mind around that. He quickly stood up and stepped away from her. "I'm fine."

"Okay." She paused, still smiling. "Did you hear what I said?"

He had heard her say something but apparently he had gotten it wrong. He shook his head.

"I love you," she repeated. Her hands were clasped together in front of her and she looked more serious than he had ever seen her.

Odin help him. He had been afraid that was what she had said. He stared at her.

"That's why I did all this stuff," she continued. "I thought you'd like it and it would seem more like a home rather than the two of us just hanging out here and aren't you going to say anything?"

Say anything? He was still waiting for his brain to click into gear, and it was being very slow about that. That was okay. One thing at a time. She had just told him she loved him. Okay. He could process that. No. No, he could not, because that idea just sent him into a wave of panic and horror like he had never felt. She loved him? What was that supposed to mean? So that was the explanation for the kissing and lovemaking and the baking? So she wasn't crazy? Or was she crazy and just saying things?

Her smile was fading with every passing second that he stood staring at her.

She was waiting for him to say something. He was supposed to say something. Odin, Thor, and Freyr, what was he supposed to say to a line like that? "Are you sure?"

She blinked, apparently startled by that response. " Yeah, I'm sure! I don't just say something like that on a lark! Anything else you want to say?"

That hadn't been good enough. He was sweating. He felt sick. He forced his mind to think. She didn't just like him. She was in love with him. Obviously she had liked him or else she wouldn't come near him. And him? Well, of course he liked her! She hadn't done that much against him. She was interesting and looked nice. He was used to having her around. She was fun to talk to. He really liked kissing her, sleeping with her. He was pretty happy being her husband and all that the position entailed. They did everything they were supposed to do and they both seemed to enjoy it. Yeah, he liked her.

And then she had to go and say something like that.

He took a deep breath. He had no idea what to say.

But Ruff's smile was completely gone by then. "So? Do you love me?"

So that's what she wanted him to say? Oh, gods. Okay, he liked her. A lot. But he had never, ever thought about being in love with someone and now it was all being thrown at him in one big blast. He had no idea what to do, what to say, how to respond. Slowly, he shook his head.

Ruff stared at him for a long, long time during which he tried to decide his next course of action and figure out what he had just done.

"Oh," she finally said softly.

"You're great," he said quickly. "You're awesome. I like being with you and—"

He closed his eyes and ducked as the chair he had been sitting in just a short time before sailed over him and into the wall. He opened his eyes to see her, chest heaving and eyes wet. "Ruff!"

"Stand up straight so I can aim!" she shrieked, grabbing the other chair. Her strength was impressive. It came too fast to dodge and wound up getting him in the stomach. "Much better!"

Fishlegs tried to catch his breath, but the blow had been something. Really something. She was good. He stuck the chair back under the table and prayed she wouldn't grab for it.

But instead she was going for the cakes, the ones she had spent so much of the day making. They were no longer for food. They were weapons, thrown at an astonishing speed against him, the wall, and the floor. Everywhere.

"Apparently there was no point in wasting time on these!" Her face was bright red as she screamed. "They were for you. Apparently you don't care, but take them anyway. The whole village can see how much you like to eat, so just take them! I don't care!"

The burnt ones from the floor had a much harder impact. Fishlegs moved quickly to the wall of weapons to grab a shield, muttering "she's insane she's insane she's insane" to himself. What had he just done? He grabbed the biggest shield and held it up to his face. He couldn't help but cringe as a few rock-hard cakes banged against it and his legs.

"A shield. How brave." Ruff's voice was pure nastiness. "Why don't you grab a sword? That gross death one you pulled out of a grave? Is that how you treat girls? Your wife?"

If that was how she treated her husband then maybe he should, he thought furiously. Though even as he thought he knew he would never bring himself to hurt her.

"No, wait," she said as another cake hit the wall behind him. "I got a better idea. Why don't you just go berserk and tear me to pieces? I bet you'd like that!"

If she only knew that he was already feeling shaky and hot. But she had gone way too far with that. "Take that back," he growled.

She didn't seem to have heard him. "Because it would sure feel better than this!"

He flung the shield aside and took another rock-cake to the stomach. She couldn't even throw the good ones. He locked eyes with her, and she froze. "Have you ever thought maybe you are completely crazy?" It was the loudest he had ever raised his voice outside of battle. Then he marched to the door and threw it open.

"I take it back!" Ruff screamed. "I hate you!"

He slammed the door.

The first thing that struck him was that the night was freezing and he had not grabbed a coat. Not that he was going back in there. The snow poured from the sky like it had been dumped, and that on the ground was past his knees. Tuff's footsteps were already fading under the newer snowfall. Fishlegs stared at them and wondered if he should go get him to deal with his sister. No, no one in his right mind would come out in this.

He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. His heart rate was a buzz, and beneath his freezing skin his blood was boiling. Maybe he should look at the lovely peaceful sight of Berk in the snow with that inky black sea absorbing the thick flakes, all the houses with their windows lit. All those people inside having a nice night with their families. It was sickening.

He released the breath, watching it turn to steam in the air even though it was so cold he could already feel mucus freezing. Maybe he should go up to the caves where the dragons were hibernating. He liked dragons. He had no idea if they liked him. Apparently he didn't know what anyone thought of him.

Ruff. For crying out loud, she had said she was in love with him and then expected him to… what? Right now the thought of her made him crazy. He couldn't even like her.

He tromped through the snow to the back of the house to the woodpile. Somehow he managed to find the axe. Amazing it had even returned to the house after Ruffnut had lost it up in the woods weeks ago. It was like ice to the touch, but he didn't care. He swung it into the wood yet to be buried in the snow and down to the logs that were covered. Nothing like a good sharp axe and the feel of doing something useful. He didn't stop until he was completely numb and could no longer work the axe. Staying outside was not going to be an option. Great. He picked up an armload of wood and returned to the front of the house.

There, he stared at the door. Ruffnut was inside. Maybe he should go somewhere else. Like where? This was his house. He had helped build it. He had as much right to be in there as Ruff did. And maybe she had calmed down.

After all, he had not said he had hated her but that he did like her. Things had been going so well before this.

He grabbed the handle and pushed.

She had locked the door.

Oh, fantastic. She said she loved him and then decided to leave him out here to freeze to death. "Ruff!" he called. "Open the door!"

There was no response.

He sighed. "Please open the door!"

"Make me!" came her voice.

He swallowed back a scream then threw all of body weight and muscle against the door. There was a snap as the bolt broke, but the door only opened a fraction as it against something else.

A barricade.

It was probably just the table. Fishlegs sucked in another breath and rammed against the door again. This time he managed to shove the table away from the door enough to get in, which was pretty far. The table was piled high with his books. He dumped the wood onto the floor and pushed the snow from his arms an The heat from the fire felt amazing.

But Ruffnut stood in the middle of the room, arms crossed tightly over her chest. Her eyes were red with tears and she wore an expression that suggested she wanted nothing more than to kill him.

"Go away," she whispered.

"I live here, too," he said.

"I don't want you here."

The kitten hissed at him. She had turned the kitten against him.

"Too bad," he said. "It's freezing out there. There's a blizzard."

"Freeze to death, for all I care." She sniffed and wiped her eyes.

He hated her with tears. It was the worst thing ever. "Ruff—"

"Shut up!" She stomped across the room to her loom and kicked it.

He instinctively grabbed a book from the table. Books were always comforting. "I'm just going to be over there." He pointed to the corner furthest from her.

She didn't respond.

Fishlegs quickly made his way over to the corner and sat down and opened the book. Maybe if it looked like he was reading Ruffnut wouldn't know he was thinking.

How had this happened? He bad been nice to her, taken care of her, talked to her. He had done everything he was supposed to do. It wasn't his fault she had gone and fallen in love him, though this looked nothing like Astrid and Hiccup. Couldn't she have just been happy with how things had been going?

Crazy. So she loved him.

He still couldn't process it.

He couldn't focus on the book even for pretend. He had no idea what it was about. Finally he just tossed it aside, then closed his eyes to fake sleep.

Ruffnut was crying. Very softly, like she didn't want him to hear, but she just wasn't that soft.

It was the worst sound in the world.

Well, he had tried talking to her. That had just made her mad. He didn't know what to do but keep pretending he was asleep.


	26. Snow

Ruffnut did not sleep well. Her intention had been to avoid sleep entirely and instead spend the night fuming, crying, and sorrowing over how much her life sucked. She certainly deserved a night devoted to that. Ideally, Fishlegs would have not been able to get back in the house, would have died, with any luck, and she could have had the house to herself with all the self-pitying misery space it offered. But no, he had to break back inside and she had to refrain from shoving him back outside or running him through with a sword or any number of murderous options. So she had climbed up into the rafters and tried not to cry until the night had reached some unholy hour of darkness and she was too exhausted to be miserable and conscious. Fuming and sorrowing drained a lot of energy.

Fishlegs, damn him, had the nerve to fall asleep in the corner instead of outside in the blizzard where he could freeze to death or get eaten by a troll. Or a stupid giant candle. Whatever. The point was that he had left the whole bed available for her, the jerk. To get back at him, she had grabbed a few blankets and lied down near the fire pit. It was incredibly uncomfortable, and though sleep came quickly it did not come easily. She drifted off thinking how stupid Fishlegs was and how stupid she was. She was pretty sure nothing like this had ever happened with Astrid and Hiccup. Damn them.

She woke up what seemed only minutes later with a stiff neck and what had to be splinters in her back. Odin, why did Fishlegs have to had taken the corner first? It was his fault she couldn't have slept in the bed. She pushed the blankets away and Kisa, who had fallen asleep on her stomach. It was still dark. Maybe she should just give up and go sleep in the bed for the rest of the night.

Except it really didn't feel that early. She stumbled to her feet and stretched.

Fishlegs was still asleep in the corner. He hadn't even bothered with blankets. Idiot. So now he was the tough Viking and she was the unloveable little wench who needed blankets to keep warm. She hated him. Oh, she hated him. With a special type of hate that was all the more horrific because it was yet mixed with the same stupid other feelings. She wasn't meant to feel all of that. No one was.

This what she got for being forward. This was what she got for telling a guy just how she felt. A smashed heart. And she had seen it coming. Oh yeah. Even when she was thinking and hoping his dopey delay was the usual dopey and slow reaction she knew he did not love her. He had not even bothered to put it in words. He had shaken his head. Apparently she had not even deserved words except for a late-in-coming "But I like you!" like they were just good buddies with benefits.

Then again, it wasn't like being discreet had done much, either. She had hoped he would figure it out. She had been nice, she had been sweet, she had attempted to be some immaculate housekeeper until her mind was numb. She had at least figured the physical affection would have given off an inkling.

Ruff watched him and felt like crying all over again. What had he been thinking? That he could just marry some girl and leave it at that? She twisted her wedding ring. What would he do if she took it off and threw it at him? Too bad she liked it. For some bizarre reason, she still liked it. It was golden and pretty. Immediately those girly feelings were replaced by others. What else had he been thinking? That he could do better? He was Fishlegs! She still couldn't believe she had stooped to falling in love with him. What did that say about her?

Couldn't she just once in her life like a guy and have him like her back? And not the lame "I like you"?

She tore her eyes away from him and gulped back a sob. Maybe she should just kill him while he was still asleep and get it over with. He deserved it. He had come back in the house and had just ignored her. Hadn't tried to fix the problem or anything. Hadn't even offered one of his stupid "are you okay?" phrases. She stared at the weapons. Oh, why bother? She couldn't kill Fishlegs.

At least he had been honest with her. Gods, she wanted to stab a knife through her own head for thinking that.

She took a deep breath. Outside. She could go outside where it was crisp and clean and winter. She could get out of this house where she didn't have to think about that evening. She could get Tuffnut. She could get her dad. What other purpose did they serve other than bend to the will of her happiness?

The fur pile was as nice and neat as she had insisted it on being. She made sure it fell over when she grabbed a few furs to wrap around herself. Then she opened the door.

And was met with a solid wall of white.

Curses! No wonder it had looked so dark. That blizzard had dumped far more than she had expected. Probably still going. She stared up the smoke hole in the roof to see an almost perfectly circular tunnel through snow. Beyond it… glimmers of snowflakes just before the heat from the fire got them.

She ripped the furs off and threw them across the room. "We're snowed in!"

Fishlegs jerked his head up, eyes blinking in confusion. "What?"

The last person she wanted to speak to. She crossed her arms tightly and turned her back to him. "We're snowed in," she repeated in a mutter.

He gave a low whistle and stood up to investigate a window. "Good thing I came back inside last night."

No, that was not a good thing. "How about I throw you back out there?"

She could practically hear him hesitate.

"No," he said slowly. "You couldn't. Because of all the snow in the way."

"Shut up."

More hestitation, possible shutting up. "Are you still upset about last night?"

The most inane question in the universe. The sheer amount of promising retorts made her dizzy. But the only thing that came out her mouth was "Why would you even ask me that?"

"I… I thought that maybe you could sleep on it and feel better in the morning and—"

She whirled around, feeling fire behind her eyes. He jumped back. "Sleep on what? Feel better about what? I slept on the floor, too, you know! It sucked! And you expect me to just get over what you said?"

"Technically I didn't say anything." He fiddled with his fingers.

"That's right. You didn't. You shook your head. You're this big fat idiot who can't even be bothered to speak to me." She could feel tears again. Her first instinct was to blink them back, but maybe they could be used to her advantage here.

"I didn't know what to say!"

"Obviously!" she shrieked so loudly that Kisa ran under the bed.

He regained the step forward. "You sort of caught me offguard."

"That's because you were too dense to notice everything else I was doing." Ruff looked at the weapons again, but none seemed to suit the situation. She just wanted to punch him in the head with her own bare fists. But barely had she the thought when she just felt weak. He wasn't even worth it.

"It wasn't like I asked to marry you," he continued.

He really deserved to have his nose broken for that. But all she could do was sigh and slump to the floor against the wall. "I know."

He took a step closer to her. "Couldn't we just pretend like last night never happened? I mean, I thought things had been pretty good lately."

She was going to have to punch him. There was no way around it, not the way he was digging himself in deeper. "Um, yeah? Because I was actually feeling something for you! Of course things were good." She was in no mood to punch him. When was the last time she had not been in the mood to punch someone? It would have to be put on hold. She gritted her teeth and stared at her feet.

Fishlegs just stood there watching her for a painfully long time. Couldn't he go somewhere else? Why did he always have to be looking at her? She couldn't deal with him right now. But he watched her until her skin tingled and her gaze snapped around to him. "What?"

He still fiddled with his hands as he he spoke. "I'm sorry."

She sniffed and looked back at her feet.

"I just didn't want to lie to you.

She furiously wiped the remaining tears from her eyes and slunk deeper to the floor. "So it's true, then? You don't care anything about me?"

"Of course I care about you! I'd be happy to do anything for you. I like you. A lot."

"Please. You like everybody. You're never mean." One of the reasons she was now crazy about him.

He cleared his throat. "Apparently last night I was."

"No, you weren't mean." It was the hardest thing to admit. He hadn't done anything mean but break her heart. "You just ruined everything."

"I noticed."

Well, wasn't that just great? He noticed when he hurt her but nothing else. She sprung to her feet with a fresh burst of energy. "So what's wrong with me, then? Is there any particular reason you don't love me? I get that I'm not Astrid, but I think I'm pretty good!"

He once more looked terrified. "I like you more than Astrid! You're pretty!"

"So then what's Astrid? Dragon dung?"

"I don't understand…"

"Of course you don't." She dropped back to the floor and hugged her knees into her chest. She was not going to speak to him anymore. She just stared forward, wishing he would somehow magically vanish.

But he didn't. Eventually, she wasn't sure how much later, he moved from where he had stood, to check the door and windows and the snow situation.

In the latest drama she had forgotten abot the snow. Oh no. Her plan to convince male family members to kill her husband had been foiled. And now she was stuck in here with him.

"It's really deep out there," he commented.

She was not going to respond.

"It's up to the roof, it looks like."

What a genius.

"So I guess we might be in here awhile."

What an observation.

"A few days, at least. I'm sure I could dig a way out, but that's how long it might take."

A few days. With him. Her heart began to pound. There was no way he would survive the few days.

"Hey, do you remember last year when it did something like this and everyone was trapped for like almost two weeks and—"

"I don't want to hear about that!" she finally yelled. "Just… just figure out what you want to do and leave me out of it!"

She could hear him making his way over to the cooking area. "We should have enough food for a few days…"

"Even with how much you eat?"

"… even with everything you threw everywhere last night."

Ruffnut had forgotten about that. Yeah, her cakes she had wasted so much time on were now in chunks and crumbs all over the floor, ready for mice. If mice could get through the snow. The longer she looked at the mess the more it bugged her. It was a reminder. She stood up and went for her broom, her totally awesome broom she had spent a whole day carving so Fishlegs would be impressed. So much for that. "Don't worry, I'll clean that up."

Fishlegs looked like she had slapped him. "No, I can do that."

She picked up the broom and wondered if she could kill him with it. "Have you ever swept?"

"Of course I have." He paused. "Have you?"

She had been doing it for awhile, if he cared to notice. She glared at him. "Yeah, I have. I have a mom that made me do girly chores growing up. It's not like sweeping takes brains or anything."

"Which means you can let me do it!" The next thing Ruff knew he was right by her trying to take the broom from her. "It's okay, I don't mind. It's my fault there's a mess anyway."

He had that right, but she snarled and jerked the broom away from him. "No!"

His huge hands grabbed the broom handle. "It's fine. I'll do it. Just do something else and hate me and I'll clean up."

"Don't you dare tell me what to do!"

"Ruff, give me the broom!"

Since when had he become so demanding? She stuck her tongue out at him and held the broom firm.

But he was still holding on. A good ten inches of handle snapped away.

Fishlegs frowned as it dropped from his hand to the floor. "Oops."

He had broken her broom. The big oaf had broken her broom. Never mind that there was still a perfectly acceptable remainder of length as well as the actual sweepy part. The broom was still useful. But it was the principle of the thing. "You broke my broom!"

"I'm sorry!"

"You had better be sorry." She swung the broom against his head, wondering how much it would hurt him.

It just seemed to annoy him. "Knock it off!" He grabbed the broom and yanked it from her hands. "I'll sweep!"

She rolled her eyes and folded her arms over her chest. "With the broken broom? Good luck."

"It's still good."

"Whatever. Knock yourself out." Ruffnut collapsed onto the bed and stared at the ceiling.

Fishlegs honestly was sweeping. Okay, so maybe men could handle that kind of chore. She glanced at him for a moment. So cute. Too bad she was furious with him.

"So do you like winter?" he asked suddenly.

She sighed. "What kind of question is that? You're asking me that?"

"I couldn't think of anything else."

She rolled over to her stomach and stared down at the blanket. "Why are you even talking to me? I don't want to talk."

"I'm talking to you because—"

"I just said I don't want to talk! Just do your non-manly sweeping."

There was a pause. "But you asked—"

Oh, for crying out loud, he didn't get it at all. Why did there have to be a snowstorm? What sick prank of Ullr was this? She didn't want to be trapped in here with Fishlegs. Her heart had been torn to pieces and the idiot who had done it was ten feet away.

Except she sort of wanted to respond. It was adorable he was asking stupid questions, and she loved the idea of answering them. She wasn't sure why, but it was a good idea. But he did not deserve a response from her. No way. She clenched her mouth shut and breathed in the blanket and listened to the sound of sweeping.

"Yes." It had to have been at least fifteen minutes later and long after the sweeping was over that the word escaped Ruff's mouth.

"Huh?" Fishlegs' voice sounded from across the room.

Stupid yes. It had been spoken against her will and had confused Fishlegs. She pushed herself up to her knees, careful not to look in his direction, and sighed. "Yes, I like winter."

"Ruff, I asked that like forever ago." Yes, he definitely sounded confused.

"I know. But yes, I like winter. It's fun and I can throw ice balls at people whitewash them and it's pretty." The words were dry, and she sounded just as miserable as she felt. Not like she liked winter at all.

"Oh." A pause. "Why do you want to whitewash people? It's kind of mean."

She shrugged. "Yeah, but it's fun and it's not like anyone actually gets hurt. At least I don't think they do."

"Once you and Tuffnut got ice up Hiccup's nose doing that," he said thoughtfully. "I think it was ten years ago, give or take. That probably hurt. It could have frozen his brain."

"Eh." She shrugged again. "Hiccup survived."

"He got a bloody nose."

Who hadn't gotten a bloody nose once in a while? "How do you know all of this?"

"Because it was after you whitewashed me."

"Oh." It was hard to keep track of all these events. "Did you get a bloody nose?"

"No, I was fine."

Silence.

Now the silence was awkward. "Do you like winter?"

"It's okay. I never really think about it."

She turned to look at him. He was placing his books back onto the shelf. "If you don't think about it, why did you ask it?"

He paused again in the middle of picking up a book. "Well, we're sort of snowed in right now, so it seemed like an appropriate question."

She narrowed her eyes and frowned. "We're snowed in for who knows how long and you ask if I like winter? That's like a dragon burning down the village and you asking if I like my meat well-done."

Fishlegs put the book away. "That's not a very good simile."

"A what?"

"Never mind."

* * *

_Kind of a random place to end the scene, but it's a long scene. Updates should be quicker, depending on how Backroads' gets to editing/posting, because the fic is pretty much done. And in time, too, because it is officially 10 DAYS TO WRITING PARTNER CRAZY FRIEND'S WEDDING!_


	27. Thinking is Overrated

Fishlegs silently continued to put his books back on the shelf, slightly fuming Ruff would go to all the trouble of arranging them and then making a big mess out of them. Then again, she was already fuming and she probably had better reason for it. At least she wasn't crying again, but instead she wore the nastiest scowl he had ever seen and the few times she managed to look at him it was as if she were telling him to die. It was all the more defined whenever he said something. He knew he should stop talking to her. It was obvious she did not want to talk to him—it was even more obvious she didn't want him in the same hemisphere as her. But what could he do? He could not help but spit out phrase after phrase regardless if she cared or was even listening. It was what he did. He doled out useless words. It was like a tic. "Nevermind" was the closest he was to shutting himself up, an achievement over explaining to Ruff what a simile was. Explaining things to people was never a good idea. They never seemed to want to hear it, and it probably would not be good to make her even madder while they were trapped inside the house.

Personally, he didn't mind being snowed in. Theoretically. He wouldn't have minded being snowed in if Ruff had not been around or were in a better mood. Being snowed in was comparable to the living situation of yetis and ice dragons, and there was always that underlying fearful possibility of some other and darker creature breaking through the snow and ice to mutilate the inhabitants of a snowbound dwelling that he found thrilling. By other definition the idea was cozy: a warm fire, some peace and quiet, no one bothering him. Ruff seemed perfectly willing to stay as far from him as possible, but the fury and apathy radiating from her was far hotter than the fire would ever get and he could not get comfortable with that going on. Maybe that was why he kept talking, the action of a desperate attempt to calm things down.

If only he could think of better questions and topics.

He arranged the last book on the shelf then stepped back to scrutinize his work. Eh, he could have cared less how it looked. "So what's your favorite thing out of those about winter?" For the love of Thor, that had slipped from his mouth without a single message from his brain.

She collapsed back onto the bed, grumbled something into the blankets and slammed her first against it.

He really needed to stop talking. He was only making things that much worse. That was a command he could give himself. Don't talk. Bite his tongue. Stop attempting communication with Rufnut. For once not do his habit of going on about things of which no one cared. "Apparently there was this winter like ninety-seven years ago where a Deadly Nadder froze in mid-air while attacking the village because of this ocean current that was out of whack that brought record low air temperatures to—" He bit his tongue. It hurt. Therefore it worked.

Ruffnut did not respond.

Good. If she had responded, he probably would have been tempted to keep talking. Maybe if she kept ignoring him, he would eventually be tempted not to speak.

Except right now she was ignoring him because she was mad at him. He had never been very good with people being mad at him. It made him super uncomfortable and insecure and he could not just shrug off that kind of silence. Of course she was mad at him. And he deserved it. He would be mad, too, if he had been in her position. Not that he had ever been in love with someone before, but it looked like the unaccepted kind really sucked. It was completely his fault she was hurt and mad. He couldn't blame her at all. In fact, he felt awful about it, more awful than he had ever felt about anything in his entire life.

But he had no idea what to say to improve that situation. His heart pounded every time he thought about, and pushing it from his mind just made him think about not thinking about it, which then made him think about it. Every time he looked at Ruff with her scowl and her wet eyes he thought about it. He hated to see her like that. It was the most horrible sight in the world and it tore his insides to pieces. Worse yet was that he knew he had caused it. He had said he was sorry, even though he knew it wasn't good enough and so did Ruff. It was the only thing he could think of saying to be helpful and he was sincere about it.

Still biting his tongue, he pushed one of the chairs over to the corner where he could be far, far away from Ruff. She would prefer it that way. He could sit over there and maybe wait for the snow to go away. It couldn't take that long. Winter didn't last all year. Though it sure would be convenient if dragons didn't hibernate and could maybe melt away the snow so they wouldn't have to be in here together. Though all that snowmelt would potentially flood the entire village. But that would be preferable to this. Now how could he wake up a dragon and get it to come? There was nothing in the dragon manual about that. Well, there was a lot more to dragons than what was in the manual so all he had to do was think about what he knew.

Nothing was coming to mind.

Time passed awkwardly. There was no other way for time to pass. Ruff looked like she was trying to suffacate herself. If he hadn't known that was impossible Fishlegs would have stopped her, but touching her right now struck him as a really bad idea.

He wasn't sure how long he sat in the corner, waiting for… what? Something to drastically change? Sitting there sure wasn't making things any better. It was too quiet, he had nothing to do, his tongue hurt, and the events of the prior night kept running and rolling through his head, over and over. Those same terrifying three words followed by that vacuum of thought and that ice-cold grip on his heart. He felt it just as strongly. Is it what Ruff had felt? Or was she feeling something different? He had no idea. All he knew was that she felt horrible and he felt horrible that she felt horrible and that if he did not keep himself in check he did not know what the next line out of his mouth would be. The fire crackled, the wind howled outside, and there was no change.

Eventually he could not stand it anymore. He rose to his feet, opened the door, and prodded the white wall of snow. It wasn't packed or anything, and a bunch fell into the house. There was just no feasible way of really dealing with it. Shoveling it out of the way would only make things worse. Stupid Berk winters. Even though he had always loved every other snowed-in moment of his life. Being snowed in was supposed to be fun and interesting! He was supposed to be able to compare this incident with other incidents. Now he just wanted it gone. Maybe he could take armfuls of it at a time and carry it over to the fire and let it melt and flood the house. How long would it take to tunnel out of here? He could always climb out the smoke hole if needed, but that was more inconvenient than worthwhile.

"Close the door," Ruff grumbled. "It's cold."

"It shouldn't be because the snow holds pockets of air and heat—" He bit his tongue harder than before and closed the door. Well, it wasn't his opinion that mattered, it was hers. If she thought it was cold, he would take care of that. He picked up the wood he had brought in the night before and threw it on the fire.

"That was a waste," she said as she pushed herself up to her knees. Her eyes were red. "Now we don't have any wood for later. We're going to freeze to death, you oaf."

Practically, there was plenty of stuff they could burn. Though maybe an indoor woodpile would have been wise, in retrospect. "We can take care of that when we need to."

She sniffed and wiped her eyes.

That was all his fault. He was being punished, having to watch her be sad. He did not like it when she was sad. He took a deep breath. "You look nice today."

A pillow hit his head.

Okay. That was not what she wanted to hear. He made a mental note to also bite his tongue on those lines.

Processing time. What had he done? He had been nice to her all along. Things had been going well. Really well. The whole… baby thing had been very hard, but after that things had gotten better. Or so he had thought. But that was beside the point. If he charted this out, the chart would show a line representing things being good suddenly being intersected by Ruff's surprise announcement that she loved him. And just when in the timeline of Ragnorak had that happened? Not the announcement, when Ruff had decided it for herself. Maybe if he knew that he could add it to this theoretical chart and maybe draw actual data.

Except a chart was useless and boring and a complete waste of time in a situation like this.

Fishlegs put his hand to his head and tried to think, but his heart was pounding too hard. Every heartbeat was deafening. He plugged his ears as if that would help. Think, think, think. What did he think about Ruff? She was pretty, she was exciting, she was interesting. He liked that she put up with him. He even liked how she yelled at people. In spite of that she probably would have made a really good mom. He considered himself pretty lucky that he was her husband. These were all good things so…

He watched as Ruff climbed from the bed and began tearing books from the shelf again.

"Hey!" he shouted. "I just fixed those!"

"I know." She didn't bother to look at him.

"Ruff, that isn't fair!"

"Life isn't fair! Get used to it." She shoved another book from the shelf. "Where did you get all of these, anyway?"

He shrugged, wondering how that question fit in with her mission of destruction. "I don't know. I just… get him. People give them to me, people make copies, I buy them. It's really not that all that hard, I guess. There are people in this village who do read."

Ruff slipped through a book before tossing it onto the floor. "Seems like a total waste of paper."

"Paper's not that hard to make, if you know how. We have all that tree pulp left over in the shop anyway."

She raised an eyebrow. "You make paper?"

He nodded, then shrugged. "Not exclusively, and there's all this other stuff that goes into it—"

"Yeah, yeah. How do you make paper?"

"Well, you have to mix it—"

"I didn't actually want to hear it."

Then why had she asked? "Sometimes I just start talking. Sorry."

"Yeah, we've all noticed that." She sighed, knocked one more book to the floor, and sat down on the pile. "It's really boring in here."

No, it wasn't. It was scary in here. "Maybe we could play a game."

Her expression did not change. "What game did you have in mind?"

"I actually didn't have a game in mind." He tapped his fingers together. "We could play I Spy."

Now her face changed, to an expression of disgust. "I hate that game. Too much detail."

"Well, what do you like to do?" he asked.

"Different things," she replied with a shrug. "Goofing around. Fighting. Climbing trees. It's all fun."

He already knew that. "Oh."

"But you already knew that." She kicked books as she made her way to sit with her back against the bed.

"Well, yeah. I mean, it is what you're known for. And you like the kitten. And your dragon. You like animals, I guess."

"One time when we were little Tuff accidentally knocked a nest out of a tree, so I had to climb it to put it back. I practically strangled him for that." She took a deep breath and scowled. "What am I telling you all this for? It's not like you care or anything."

"No, it's interesting." Which it was. He had always liked to hear about people. He liked hearing about Ruff. It was a great character study and it was a cute story, especially the part where she strangled her brother.

She picked at a loose thread on her skirt. "So now what?"

"Huh?" He did not like the way she said that. Or asked it. It was a question, and questions were meant to make people think, and for once thinking was the last thing he wanted to do. He wasn't sure what he wanted to do instead.

Ruff yanked the thread from her skirt with a snap and wrapped it around her fingers. That's where her attention was. Not on him, on a stupid thread. "I said what I said last night because I meant it. Apparently it was the dumbest thing I have ever done, but there you go."

Not that conversation. He did not want to think about it. "Ruff—"

"Shush, I'm talking. And I get you don't feel the same way. Fine. Whatever. Maybe I should have expected that. I just figured that since you were so nice to me and then there was that whole thing with the baby and I figured everything was okay… whatever. The point is, now what? This is really awkward for me now and probably for you, too, and we should probably figure out how we're going to handle it."

Fishlegs was hit by a bolt of terror. "What?"

She took a deep breath, still purposely avoiding looking at him. "If you don't like being with me—"

No. It was like being struck by lightning, shocking and painful. She didn't want the marriage over, did she? Was that what she was saying? It would be weird and what would it do to their families and what would everyone say? And… "I like being with you! I'm fine with that ! You just… sprang that on me last night!"

"Well, sorry," she said sarcastically. "Forgive me for being honest! Did you ever think that maybe you should have considered yourself lucky?"

"Um…" He did. He really did. He just had no idea how to say it.

He really couldn't think.

Hours passed. Ruff didn't try to say anything, and neither did Fishlegs. He still couldn't think. It was a terrifying position to be in. He could recognize that thought, and he could think about Ruff in only the simplest sense of the concept. It was like she had stabbed a knife right into his brain that had stopped everything.

She somehow managed to find something to do. Sewing, of all things that she would do. She just say by the bed with a bunch of cloth and thread and sent herself through the most violent act of sewing he had ever imagined. She had to have stabbed herself at least fifty times with the needle, but she never made a sound, just grimaced and glared at her work.

Fishlegs couldn't think of anything to do.

At last he thought of something. He was hungry. Starving. He hadn't eaten anything since the night before with that cake that had ended up in disaster and the hunger hit him all at once. Okay. Eating. Simple enough. Ruff was probably starving, too. Preparing food didn't require much thought. It was safe to do. He got a loaf of bread. Ruff. He had to talk to her. "Are you hungry?"

After along wait, she nodded.

He took a knife and cut off a hunk of bread for her. There was cheese as well. He got some of that. Should he leave it for her on the table or take it to her? It wasn't that good—at least, what he put into his own mouth was completely tasteless. Maybe he hadn't been that hungry. Thinking about where to put her food was way too much thought. He would take it to her, simple as that. Be brave.

She didn't look up from her sewing when he set the platter of food next to her.

He quickly retreated to the other side of the room. So far, so good. And it didn't take much thought.

"Get Kisa something," Ruff said.

The kitten? Ruff's kitten? Oh, great. He had thought Ruff's name. It was like being stabbed. "What?"

"She can't get mice. Get her some cream. I give her some everyday."

Oh. Okay. He could handle that. He set a bowl of cream down and sure enough the cat crawled out from under the bed to lick it. The sound of her lapping was the loudest in the house.

So far, so good. He was still safely in his non-thinking place avoiding whatever else he could be thinking and feeling.

He grabbed a book from the newest mess. He wasn't sure what it was or what it said, but looking at paper gave him something to do.

He was supposed to be thinking about something else. Somewhere in the back of his brain a decision was being made. Or had been made a long time ago. He wasn't sure because he wasn't thinking about it. Ruff never seemed to think and it worked out well for her.

At last, Ruff set down her sewing and grabbed an axe. "It's cold."

Fishlegs glanced at the fire. The flames were low. He hadn't noticed. Not thinking did have its benefits. "Oh."

"We need wood." She raised the axe over the table.

"Whoa!" He jumped up and pulled the axe from her hands. "What are you thinking?"

She rolled her eyes. "That we need wood. To burn. Duh."

"But we have a woodpile out back!"

"And ten feet of snow!"

That was a good point. Maybe not thinking wasn't such a good idea. He studied the axe in his hands. "I got a better idea."

She frowned and folded her arms.

Fishlegs walked to the back wall. "If we chop right through here, that should place us next to the woodpile. We use what we chopped away to dry the rest of it, and we'll be good."

"You want to put a hole in our house?"

He shrugged. "That's a nice table. And a hole would be easy to patch. Do you have any idea how hard it is to make a nice table?"

"Really hard?" Her frown faded a little. "Okay. Go for it."

He swung the axe into the wall. It bit through cleanly, though wood chips went everywhere.

Without warning, Ruff began to laugh. "This is so insane! I love it!"

He couldn't help but grin as well. Soon enough wood was gone that he was pretty sure they could fight through the snow for what they needed.

"I just see snow," Ruff commented. She knelt down and began to dig it away. "It's cold!"

"It's snow."

"I know that." She pulled the snow into the room. "I really hope you knew where the woodpile was."

"It was fourteen feet from the left and—"

"Okay. I believe you. I just…. Wow, you were right!" She stuck in both hands and yanked in a small, soaked log. "Cool! Good job!"

That felt great coming from her.


	28. Ghost Stories

Ruff had messed with Fishlegs' head. She had not done so intentionally, but the victory was still glorious anyway and she was going to take any pleasure she could out of his obvious suffering. And obvious it was. For someone who had been for years just content to do his own thing he was looking wonderfully jumpy and upset. All she had to do was scream and he would jump through the roof. She had power over him, sweet and delicious power. He might not care for her, but she had managed to get into his head enough to make him pay for her heartache.

All miserable day he had done nothing. No mind-numbingly geeky activity. He barely even ate, and he was capable of eating no matter what was going on. He just hung around as far from her as possible and exuded terror and discomfort.

Ruff still wanted nothing more than to cry her eyes out all over again, but being quiet had its advantanges and a tiny part of her was actually enjoying all of it a little too much. The longer she looked sad and angry, the worse it would be for him. He was a nice guy. She knew that. So even if he did not love her he should have enough of a heart to acknowledge what he had done to her.

Yes, it was good old-fashioned head messing. Tantrum had been right. It was fun.

Until she thought about it too much. Then the sick joy was gone and she was back to how she had been the night before sans crying. Even if she wanted to cry, she was not going to. It was not going to fix anything. She knew that.

She did like it when he tried to talk to her, even though it was probably just him being nice. Well, that was one reason she loved him: he was nice.

She had done her share of the speaking. She had actually iniated a conversation. One that she definitely did not want to have, but it had seemed… necessary, save for freak change in his feelings. Or hers, maybe back to before where she didn't care quite so much. Besides… that conversation… would be even worse to her. Was she just supposed to abandon everything after they had reached such a good place?

But if that was what he wanted, then so be it.

Except he didn't seem like that was what he wanted. Was that a good or a bad thing? Was he just so content with how things were going that he just did not want a change? Or…

Well, if that were the case, he should have said something last night!

She wished she had other thoughts to preoccupy herself with than that, but it was impossible to shake from her brain. She couldn't go anywhere else, she couldn't make Fishlegs go anywhere else. There he was, this mostly silent reminder of what had happened. Last night, the pregnancy, everything. The only good thing that kept her from going completely crazy was the knowledge he was suffering, too.

All. Day. Long.

So she pulled out sewing. Of all things, sewing. She didn't like it anymore now that she wasn't trying to please Fishlegs. But it was there and the needle was sharp and she could pretend the fabric was Fishlegs. Stab. Stab. Stab.

But it was cold. Whatever time of day it was, the air was cold, no matter what he said about snow trapping air and heat. So she had allowed him to chop an axe right through the house in some weird attempt to get wood. It had worked. It had been fun. She had been happy. He had looked happy.

Tragically, there had been nothing after that. Happiness could be very awkward.

Then what had to be darkness came. At least, the fire burned brighter. Night time already and she had not killed Fishlegs. They had both survived this mess. She had managed not to cry again.

She pushed the sewing under the bed. How long had she been doing that? Her fingers were stiff and she had drawn more blood than she could ever measure. And the sewing looked like crap.

Why had she burst out what she had burst out? What had she been thinking? Now that she looked at Fishlegs it was so obvious. Releasing that kind of information on him was like catapulting a boulder onto both of them. She had been a fool to think that just because she loved him meant he loved her.

He liked her. Why couldn't that have been good enough? And it had been good enough. He seemed to enjoy all of it, the kissing, the sex, just being around her. And things, oddly enough, had improved ever since the miscarriage. Or she had thought so. He really liked her, though. He had said so, and considering she drove half the village nuts, that was pretty good.

But it wasn't enough. She had that to think about plus the fact that she was trapped inside with someone she wanted to disembowel plus the fact that it was getting very dark. The snow only made it worse. She shivered.

"Do you want to hear a ghost story?"

Had she heard that right? A ghost story? She was sad and mad and a little scared of the dark, and he had the nerve to ask her if she wanted to hear a ghost story? She stared at him.

He must have seen the befuddlement in her face, because he sucked in some air and asked her again "Do you want to hear a ghost story?"

No, she did not want to hear a ghost story! Was he completely crazy? She rolled her eyes and pulled her knees into her chest.

"I just thought it would be really appropriate since we're trapped in here and it's dark and kind of eerie," he explained, apparently not getting the message she did not want to hear one of his stupid ghost stories.

Despite how fun it would be.

"Night and winter are always the best time for ghost stories."

Ruff was sure they were, but she did not want to hear a ghost story.

He scooted his chair about a foot in her direction. "Okay! Here it goes!"

Thor almighty, she was going to have to listen to one if she didn't open her mouth and yell at him.

Fishlegs' voice lowered to a raspy whisper. "It was a dark and stormy night."

Wasn't that how all ghost stories began?

"Despite the rain, thunder, and lightning, a rage of dragons took wing and attacked the seaside village. The Vikings fought hard, and in the end drove the dragons off. But a Viking woman's arm was bitten off during the attack."

Eww.

"To replace her arm, her husband had fashioned for her an arm made of solid gold."

No one in Berk ever used gold.

"The golden arm was the woman's pride and joy, and when she was died, she was buried in her barrow with it. But soon after her death, her husband began thinking of all he could do with that golden arm."

Hmm. What were the uses of a golden arm? Would Fishlegs start listening those next?

"So he returned to the barrow, broke into it, and stole the golden arm right off of the body! He took it home and locked it into a chest. He then went to sleep, not worrying about a thing. Until he heard footsteps outside the house. Thump. Thump. Thump." Fishlegs said each sound effect like it was the most serious thing he ever had to say. "And then, a voice he could barely hear "Who's got my golden arm?" "

This sounded familiar. She had heard this before. "Fishlegs—"

But he just kept on with the story. "The man went for his battle hammer, certain that its great weight would protect him against any threat, natural or unnatural. But by the time he had the weapon in hand there was a pounding at the door. Thump. Thump. Thump. And the voice came again, a little louder this time "Who's got my golden arm?" Now of course the man was a true Viking and not terrified in the least. Even so, he did not approach the door."

Ruff would have probably opened the door and banged the crazy old one-armed woman over the head with the hammer right then and there instead of waiting for her to corner her inside a building.

"Nor did the man respond. He squeezed the hammer all the tighter. Then the door began to shake as the ghoulish creature outside tried to get in, all the while crying in a voice like wind through a cave "Who's got my golden arm?" But at last the door flew open and—"

It was more than Ruff could take. She sighed and pushed her feet out, as if that would be enough to end the story. "I know! I've heard this! Everyone's heard this story! The dead lady pops into the house and screams "You've got it!" or some equally stupid line while you jump at me and try to scare me."

Fishlegs reddened. "I wasn't going to jump at you."

Probably not. He was too terrified and weirdly uncomfortable. Good. She had messed with him. "Don't you know any other stories?"

He almost smiled. "Yes!"

Obviously she should not have asked that question. "Well, don't tell them."

"But it's the best time for telling ghost stories."

"You already explained that." Still, he was right. It was now so dark that the only light came from the fire and the wind outside was louder than any dead woman. "But that wasn't even a decent ghost story. It was a lame story for scaring little kids."

"It scared me when I was little," Fishlegs replied.

The truth was it had scared her, the first twenty times she had heard it. "I'm sure it did."

He sighed and was silent for so long that Ruff finally assumed he was done trying to talk to her for the time being. "How about this one?"

Maybe she should throw one of the needles at him. "I don't want to hear one."

"This one is good, I promise."

He looked so eager and excited that Ruff just vaguely nodded her head and decided she would just try to think of something else."

Fishlegs moved even closer and began in the same over-dramatic whispering voice. "A certain boy and girl once lived nearby. The boy was in the habit of trying to frighten the girl in a variety of ways, till she became at last so accustomed to his tricks, that she ceased to care for anything whatever, putting down everything strange that she saw and heard to the boy's mischief.

One washing way, the girl was sent by her mother to fetch home the linen, which had been spread to dry in a pasture. When she had nearly filled her basket, she happened to look up, and saw sitting on a barrow near her a figure dressed in white from head to foot, but was not the least alarmed, believing it to be the boy playing her, as usual, a trick. So she ran up to it, and pulling its cap off said, "You shall not frighten me this time."

Then when she had finished collecting the linen she went home. But, to her astonishment the boy was the first person who greeted her upon her return. Among the linen, too, when it was sorted, was found a moldy white cap, which appeared to be nobody's property, and which was half full of earth.

The next morning the ghost, for what else could it have been? was found sitting with no cap upon its head, upon the same barrow as the evening before. Nobody knew what to do or to get rid of it, so they asked a neighboring village for advice.

An old man declared that the only way to avoid certain evil was for the little girl to place the cap back on the ghosts, in the presence of many people, all of whom were to be perfectly silent. So a crowd collected in the pasture, and the little girl, going forward, half afraid, with the cap, placed it upon the ghost's head, saying, "Are you satisfied now?"

But the ghost, raising its hand, gave her a terrible blow, and said, "Yes, but are you now satisfied?"

The little girl fell down dead, and at the same instant the ghost sank into the barrow upon which it had been sitting, and was no more seen." Fishlegs finished, and fell into a rather pleased silence.

In spite of herself, Ruffnut shuddered. She really did hate scary stories. "That's a terrible ending."

Fishlegs shrugged. "What would have preferred? A happy ending? The best ghost stories have really creepy and awful endings. Trust me. The more gruesome and sad, the better."

He did have a point to that. Ruff fiddled with a strand of hair that had come loose. She could barely see anymore, it was so dark. "I think it's cool that you like all those old stories." She didn't sound like she thought it was cool, he didn't deserve that much.

He shrugged again. "Well, they're really awesome to hear. They're just neat."

She couldn't believe he had bothered to tell her a story. Well, she could believe it. It was just like him to blather on when no one cared. Even so… "Was that just to be nice to me?"

"Um…" That sent away all the recently gained comfort for him. "Well, yeah, I thought you might want to hear a story and it seemed like the perfect time, so I told you a story."

"Because you felt bad?" She couldn't keep a small hiss out of her voice.

There was another long period of silence where the only sound came from the fire. "No. I really wanted to tell you a story. I like telling stories."

He sounded honest enough. She didn't reply. She really did not understand him or anything that he did. She liked it, but she didn't understand it. Maybe that was half the fun. If only it didn't leave her feeling so miserable.

He claimed he liked her. He claimed he cared about her. Okay, fine. Couldn't he prove it?

Kisa wandered over to her with a meow that meant she wanted to be picked up. Ruff did so, and spent the next time playing and wrestling with the kitten. At least somebody in the snowbound place wanted to be with her. But at last even she grew weary of that. Without saying another word to Fishlegs or even looking at him, she crawled into bed. So much more comfy than the floor. The perfect place to hatch a plan.

* * *

_Note: Actual folklore pieces we thought were cool._


	29. What Ruff Did

_Random author notes: One of us was happily married last Friday (she's not participating in this posting, the story was finished two weeks ago), and the other just became engaged yesterday. So... yay! _

_And on with the story._

* * *

Gone.

A single word with so much meaning that would only get lost in more words. A long process of ideas and things and everything that had taken so much to get together. Their absence? Best known as gone. A wild crazy feeling that could only be expressed in that one word in a moment of total and complete shock.

Fishlegs had other words. He had spent most of the night trying to come up with them; first the words, then the selection of the best ones, and then in the end how to put then altogether. His feelings for Ruff, how they worked themselves up, a solution to the madness that had been plaguing him, a way to make it all better. It was to have been perfect. The best. Maybe what he should have said in the first place. It made sense. He had liked it, he had carefully considered every phrase. It was going to be perfect.

And then, just like that, it was gone. All he had to do was wake up. There. He couldn't remember what he was to have said, not a thing. He couldn't remember what he had been thinking. He couldn't remember what he had been feeling. All of it was gone.

Just like her.

In place of everything he was going to say, in place of her, was a shockingly cold emptiness that nearly struck down the house.

He stared around the room, mind assuming that Ruff logically had to be somewhere. Maybe not immediately visible. Maybe she was hiding. She would hide. But that did not seem to be the case. Which left him utterly bewildered with his heart pounding. Impossible. But he had spent the night once more in the corner, a place that gave him a decent view of everything. There was no place she could have hidden. She wasn't under the bed. She wasn't in the rafters. She probably wasn't hiding in a pot or basket, though he couldn't be too sure. It just didn't seem likely. He didn't understand. It was like she had disappeared. She had to have disappeared. Vanished. Poof. Turned invisible.

Nah, that was ridiculous. She couldn't be invisible. That was impossible. Was it?

He couldn't think straight. His heart beat so fast he felt ill. "Ruff?" he asked quietly. Of course there was no answer. Apparently invisible girls didn't speak. Thor's beard, he was going crazy.

The kitten lay on the bed, licking itself. No Ruff. Fishlegs rose shakily. Ruff wasn't here. Where could she be? "Ruff?"

He did not like her not there.

But it was impossible. She had to be here. They were snowed in, after all. The only way to get out was to dig out or climb up the roof through the smoke hole…

She would have done that. There. That was sensible and logical thinking. Just as cool as turning invisible. He needed to think logically. And if she had turned invisible, that would be far too freaky.

But instead of feeling relief, all he felt was further panic.

He was supposed to have said something. He couldn't remember what. She had ruined it.

She was gone. She wasn't there anymore. She had taken the risk of climbing up though the rafters, outside through the piled snow, onto the roof, of all places. Out into the results of a crazy and deadly blizzard. Who did that? What had she been thinking? One did not leave unless it was absolutely necessary when it was perfectly safe being inside.

He was pretty sure he was having some sort of panic attack, so he took a deep breath and tried a third time. "Ruff?"

She wasn't there. So she was either invisible or had escaped the house. Why would she escape the house? Besides the fact that she was mad at him. Did she really choose facing all that snow over him? Why would she leave?

He felt very alone.

Ruff needed to there. Ruff needed to be around. Not out where it was cold and snowy and dangerous. In here she might be miserable, but she was at least safe. Out there she wasn't safe. Winter wasn't something with which Vikings messed. What if something happened to her out there? Countless, equally awful scenarios flew through his mind. Frostbite. Hypothermia. Falling through ice. Getting eaten by a snowmonster. Falling in the ocean. Impaled by a falling icicle. Running off with a Jotun. Freezing. Getting lost. Yes, he was definitely having a panic attack. He felt dizzy. His head felt hot.

The next thing he knew, he was gasping for breath and staring at two halves of the table he must have smashed apart. Damn. Tables were hard to make. But he didn't care about tables.

He cared about Ruffnut. He had never gotten so worked up over another person before.

Was that it? Had he been thinking that all night? He still couldn't remember, but at least he was thinking it now and that had to count for something.

Ruff. She had left. Sometime during the night she had the not-so-bright idea of struggling up toward the single available opening in the house and escaping. And leaving him to freak about it. He was furious with her.

Getting that close to the smoke hole was as hard as it had looked. Harder, actually, and made even more so by the fact that he had barely made sense of how to pull himself over the rafters to grip the siding when a moment of sanity suggested a coat and maybe snowshoes would not be bad ideas. He tried to shake it away, that he would be fine. But would Ruff? He had no idea and he couldn't take that risk. So the effort of attempting to climb a shelf had to be repeated. He was not meant for that kind of dexterity, and carrying things was a challenge he really wasn't ready for. At least there weren't any snowshoes to grab. Ruff probably had snatched those! Still, furs were heavy. But after several deadly attempts he managed to pull himself through, fists gripping the iced-over areas where Ruffnut must have climbed out and finally rolling through the thick carpet of snow. At least it kept him from falling off the roof into more snow.

And more snow was the word. The morning was misty and threatening to snow more, and Berk was marked by the barest signs of roofs and the columns of smoke rising up. Smoke. He realized he was coughing and had been for some time now. He forced out more coughs and considered how miserable this all was. Ruff had better be worth it. Gods, she was impossible. He didn't know he put up with her. But he did put up with her, at least most of the time. And he didn't mind it.

He was pretty sure he liked it.

His heart began to pound again in another round of panic. Good panic, it seemed.

He was such an idiot.

There wasn't much of a trail to follow, but he was a fair tracker, and the snow was packed enough that even he could walk through it without too much trouble. Everything was coated in thick whiteness and ice. Berk might as well have been a glacier in the ocean. It was freezing. Ruff had better be okay. If she wasn't okay, well, he didn't want to think about that. Even thinking about thinking about it sent him near beserking. So instead he thought of Ruff playing with the kitten the night before. It was a good thought, though he kept thinking about what if it had been a baby instead and it was an even better thought. Though it was still really good just thinking about her.

Well, it seemed he thought about her a lot, had ever since the betrothal, which was normal. She was irritating and fun and pretty and she drove him crazy, had so for months. He didn't know what to do about her.

What he assumed to be her trail departed from the village and headed up toward the woods, steady and straight. She would do something crazy like that. He hoped he could follow it there, but snow was already beginning to fall. His gaze became more intent even as his thoughts wandered.

What had he moronically told her the other night? That he liked her? He had told her that plenty of times. It was true. He liked everything about her. He liked how mean she could be, her hair, her facial expressions, the things she said, her wildness, her body, her madness. He liked talking to her. All those things that made putting up with her a little easier. Some positive things when he couldn't get her off his mind.

How could he have been so stupid?

He started to call for her again. "Ruffnut! Ruff!"

No answer.

He called again, as loud as he could, and tried to move through the snow as faster. Very difficult. At least it was packed. At least he wasn't falling through to his death. Even if she would prefer that. But he kept moving and kept calling.

What if she wasn't okay? What if her impulsive action had gotten her killed? He would go crazy, completely beserk. He needed her to be okay and safe.

So the other night she had told him she loved him. When exactly had she decided that?

It didn't matter. Whenever it had been, he had her beat. He was sure of it. That was a good thought. He had beat Ruff. He had been first. A long time ago. He was deciding at that moment it had been a long time ago.

He had been totally brain dead for not saying it first!

And then, after what must have been an hour, he saw them. The ends of two snowshoes sticking through the snow.

He felt his mind go hot. No. No no no no. It couldn't be.

He threw himself into the snow, seeking a good two feet, and dug ferociously into the snow. This was a nightmare. She wouldn't have done this. She was smarter than this.

"Fishlegs?"

He screamed.

Ruffnut emerged from a jagged hole in a pile of snow he had not noticed. Her hair looked frozen and her skin was red with the cold. She had on a coat, so she had been sensible about that.

"Ruff!" He knocked her over into the snow, his arms so tightly around her she gasped for breath.

"Fishlegs, you're… crushing me…" she managed to get out.

"Oh! Sorry!" He couldn't release her very much. She was cold and the coat was scratchy but it was her and he had her. "What are you doing out here? I thought… I thought you were dead or something or eaten by a snow monster and—" He forced himself to take a breath.

She wasn't struggling in his arms. In fact, she rather collapsed into him. "I was building a snow cave. It started snowing and I didn't think I could get back because it started snowing again."

He resisted the urge to hug her even closer. She felt so good to hold. "You left! Why did you leave?"

Unexpectedly, she began to laugh. A good, hard laugh. "Honestly? I was hoping you would look for me. Dumb after all that. But it worked. You did."

"Of course I would come look for you. I told you I would do anything for you. And I woke up and you weren't there and I freaked out and I broke the table and I had to climb out the roof… and you were trying to make me do that?"

She tried to push away. "Well, if you only felt obligated!"

Obligated? What was wrong with that? "Of course I had to come after you! You're my wife and I had to. I couldn't…" He sighed. His throat was about ready to freeze up. He couldn't what? Apparently he couldn't say what he had come here to say. "I couldn't not come because I had to come. That's what you do for people you love. Because I think I fell in love with you first."

Ruff stopped struggling. "What did you say?"

That had he loved her. Hadn't she heard? And he was pretty sure he was right in saying he had been first. It had been really quite and sneaky, that love. So he couldn't be blamed too much for having not have noticed until now. Even early in the marriage he had liked being with her, having her around, being near her. He worried about her, he thought about her. Nothing terribly wild, but he wasn't terribly wild anyway. Now that he had all of last night and this morning to think about it, he was sure about it. It had to have been love, probably the entire time. It was love now. "I love you."

A wide grin spread over her face, but she quickly fought it back down. "You shook your head the other night, you idiot!"

"I didn't know then." He moved his hand through her frozen hair. "I'm sorry, but I didn't know it. But I do now and I know that I've loved you for a really time and I'm so sorry I didn't say something sooner. But I love you so much and I would do anything for you and I mean it and don't you ever do something like this again!"

Then he kissed her before she could respond.

When the kiss ended, there were tears in her eyes, already crystallizing. Odin's bloody eye, she was crying. Why was she crying?

"I hate you," she mumbled. "You completely shatter my heart the other night and now you're telling me you love me? Messing with my head? I hate you!"

Maybe he had been too late. No. "You hate me?"

She shook her head and rubbed away her tears. "No, I'm just saying that. I love you, too. Like I told you."

"Oh." Fishlegs felt rather confused. "So I love you and you love me? We're sure about this?"

She smiled and nodded.

"That's good." He wasn't sure what else to do now. He would like to kiss her again.

It was a great kiss. Fiery hot, soft, and he loved the way she felt in his arms. "We should go back to the house," he muttered softly. "You need to get warm."

"It is getting cold," she said, breaking apart. "Colder. I guess since we just settled our marriage situation we should take care of that."

"Maybe."

They kissed again.

He had to think. If the snow cave was ready, then they could go in there and be warm and continue this. "Snow cave. Agreed."

"It's mostly done." She grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the entrance.

She had done a pretty good job, as far as he could see. Every Viking in Berk was expected to know how to build a snow cave. In cases like this.

"What made you think of a snow cave?"

"Everyone knows about them," she said with a sigh. "Basic survival. You think I got the idea from you when you said the snow would be warm? You're that conceited?" She crawled in on her hands and knees, and he followed her.

It was a tight squeeze. "You didn't make it very big!" he called after her.

"Maybe if you weren't so fat, you'd get through easier!" she shot back.

Yes, this was Ruff. The one he loved. "Excuse me for liking food!"

They collapsed into the inside of the cave. Again, very small. Ruff must have not counted on him showing up. But it was indeed warmer than the outside and she was close against him and that felt great. He could imagine her smiling in the darkness.

"I love you," he said again.

"I love you, too!" She felt his arms around his.

Ah, the very action that drove him nuts practically every night since it had gotten cold! He had missed it the past few nights. "Why do you do that? Grab my arm?"

"Because it's cold and you're warm." She squeezed his arm tighter. "I've gotten rather use to it and I don't think it's going away."

"I don't mind." He really didn't. He understood that now. "That's great."

"Good, because it's not stopping!" She leaned her head on his shoulder. "So you don't mind being married to me?"

"I never did," he said truthfully. "I think I'm going to like it much more now that I know I'm in love with you, but I think that was it. I would have done anything for you no matter what. We were picked to get married, and I never would have left you."

"I guess I just didn't want to be married," she replied softly. "But it was you, and you were so nice to me, so it was okay. I didn't think I would fall in love with you, but I did. I thought I would marry someone who was, well, like Tuff, as wrong as that sounds."

"I'm pretty tough."

She laughed and snuggled closer. "I know you are. I love that. Well, I figured you were good enough for a husband and I was pretty happy. And then I got pregnant… you were so nice to me after what happened."

"I was worried about you. You were upset. I hate to see you upet in any way. And… and I was upset, too. About the baby."

"Really?" She seemed happy to hear that.

"I think you would be a great mother," he continued, realizations coming as he spoke. "I mean, you're Ruffnut, and you've been completely crazy for as long as I can remember. But you're sweet when you want to be."

"I guess I am."

"Maybe I should have said that a lot sooner."

"Maybe I would have punched you."

Maybe she would have. Fishlegs didn't care. She could punch him later, and he would deserve it, but right now he just liked having her with him.

Ruff shifted from his shoulder and kissed him.

Such a great kiss. And there were other ways to get warm. Body heat. Only intensifying as the kissing went on.

"Ah!" she shrieked when her clothes were almost off. "My elbow's in the snow!"

"Sorry!" But there wasn't much room.

"There's snow everywhere," she complained.

"You made it too small."

She kissed him. "Maybe this wasn't such a good idea."

He was pretty sure he had snow in every body cavity. "Maybe we should wait till we're home."


	30. Honeymoon Revisited

Ruff probably should have been angrier than she was. How dense did Fishlegs have to be to assume she would die just because she had decided to escape being snowed in? Why did it take that idea for him to get his act together? She had offered him a very reasonable response when she had told him she loved him. And yet, there was something incredibly romantic about him knocking her over into the snow. It was dumb, oafish, and thoughtless—and worked perfectly for her. She was harassed by a brother for years, she knew her love lanaguage. The tackle was sweet, a lot more than she had expected, and she was not about to complain. How many other guys in Berk would come after a girl during a snowstorm?

No, she definitely could not complain. She was in love, and it was good again. He had said enough to make it all better, even better than it had been before. She felt he deserved a punch after all he had put her through, but that could and would be saved for later. After all, he was trying to earn it.

For example, he was now listing all of her faults as they returned toward the village. "And you're weird, and really loud, and impatient. And kind of gangly. Did I say that already?"

"Yes, you did." She reached down to grab a snowball with the hand that wasn't holding his. "Twice."

"And you're mean," he continued happily. "For example, I think you're going to throw that snowball at me."

She had tried to be sneaky. "You saw that?"

"I tend to notice things."

"Stupid things." She laughed and crushed the snowball into his face.

He sputtered and wiped the snow away with his own free hand. "How many times do I have to apologize for that?" He no longer sounded guilty and desperate, just genuinally curious. "I'm sorry to the 8th power of ten. Is that good enough?"

"No," she said, squeezing his arm. "You will apologize as many times as I want."

He reached forward and pushed an icy branch from their path. "I already told you, I fell in love with you first."

His one piece of redemption. Even so, she couldn't help but feel pure joy when she thought he had loved her all along. "But you had no idea. You're an idiot. You couldn't even figure that out. You don't notice things at all."

"That's another problem with you. You can never say anything nice."

"I know. This place is not a winter wonderland but a frozen wasteland." Ruff gestured at the lay of Berk stretched out before them. The sun was sort of out, the ocean was sparking, and it seeed a few individuals had managed to dig themselves out of the snow already. Yep, her husband was right. She was not going to say there was anything nice about this. "And on top of that, you are boring, eat way too much, are completely dense, and never make any sense."

"Your brother's prettier than you," he shot back.

"But you still think I'm pretty?" She stopped and twisted to face him with a smile.

He blushed bright red. "Yes. Really pretty."

"Just not as pretty as Tuff." She nodded and threw her arms around his neck for a kiss. "I can handle that."

"Good." Without warning he scooped her up. "Want me to carry you over the threshold again? Not the Hall, our house. For good luck?"

"The house is covered in snow," she said, kissing him on the cheek. "What are you going to do? Drop me through the ceiling."

"Er…" That had caught him off-guard.

She laughed. "I'm kidding."

"Actually, I was thinking about it just now," he said thoughtfully. "Remember after you lost the baby and I carried you home?"

That was something she wasn't going to forget soon, but a smile slowly spread over her face. She liked him using the word "home". So much better than house. "I do."

"Did that count?"

She snuggled against him. "We can say it did."

"There's just one problem." He sounded truly concerned.

She looked up at him. "Huh?"

He was looking over the mostly snow-covered village. "How are we supposed to tell which house is ours?"

* * *

It was over a week before it was practical to venture outside. Climbing through the smoke hole in the roof was the only way out, and it was terribly impractical. Fishlegs and Ruff spent a little bit of time digging the snow away from the front door, but Fishlegs decided he didn't mind being snowed in.

It meant time with Ruff. Over a week of just Ruff. The wife he was crazy for and loved more than anything, the wife who was just as crazy for him and just plain crazy. He couldn't get enough of her. They talked about everything, wild stories of her adventures, random facts that he knew. She at least pretended to be interested and he loved her for that. They spent time in bed. A lot of time. They even did dumb things like tease the kitten and play games and read. Ruff even insisted on reorganizing things. It was like the honeymoon time they never had. And now they were having it.

Being in love was awesome.

Why hadn't they figured that out earlier?

Fishlegs didn't know, but there was no point in caring. All that mattered was now.

It was almost disappointing when the snow let up enough for an escape. Still, real sunlight was nice when he and Ruff managed to break through the tunnel they had dug to actual fresh air. It was sort of like what an animal frozen for millennia must feel when it became unfrozen. He didn't say that out loud. Ruff would probably hit him if he said that outloud.

"We should make a giant snowfort out of this," Ruff said as she heaved a snowball in no particular direction. "Or a giant snowball. One that would crush the entire village."

"We'd have to start at the top of the village. You know, for gravity."

"Can't we just build it here and you can push it up there?" she whined.

He smiled. He was so in love with her.

But all thought of giant snowballs vanished as snow was already being thrown everywhere.

"You're an idiot!" Snotlout's voice echoed on the snow. "You're an idiot who's never serious and she needs someone serious!"

"I can make her laugh!" Tuffnut's voice shot back. "That's what she needs!"

Both boys appeared, rolling roughly straight past the house, hands around each other's throats, bodies covered in snow.

"She liked me first!" Snotlout screamed as he laid a fist into Tuff's shoulder. "Ask anyone! She liked me first!"

Fishlegs heard Ruffnut suppress a giggle next to him. He almost expected her to join in the scuffled.

But Snotlout and Tuffnut were oblivious to anything but each other. "No one cares if she liked you first! She figured out the best choice in the end."

"Oh whatever!"

With a snarl Tuff wrestled Snotlout facedown into the snow. The twins were very good at whitewashing, they really were. "Yeah, well, my parents are talking to her parents so—" He screamed as Snotlout kneed him.

And Ruff just kept giggling.

"What's going on?" Fishlegs asked as he helped her out onto solid snow.

"Tantrum" was her only reply.

Fishlegs really wasn't sure what that meant and he would probably be in trouble for not knowing. To be on the safe side, he said nothing.

There were other people out and about, but so far only Tuffnut and Snotlout had managed to draw Fishlegs' attention away from Ruff. He was taking her for a walk in the snow, where everything perfect and pretty. He should have done this a long time ago.

He didn't notice anyone until Hiccup. Hiccup, looking forlorne and upset, sitting by himself in the snow.

Ruffnut grinned and prepared a snowball that Fishlegs had to grab from her hands. "Everything okay?" Fishlegs asked.

Hiccup shrugged. "Astrid's mad at me. She kicked me out. I don't even know what I did."

But they hadn't been married too long ago. "What?"

Hiccup shrugged and stared into the snow. "I'm pretty sure she hates me."

"No, she doesn't," Ruff said quickly.

Hiccup forced a laugh. "Thanks."

"They deserve it," Ruff said when they had returned home. The walk had been a walk and nothing more. Fishlegs didn't care what the rest of the village was doing, he cared about Ruff. "I'm horrible for saying that, but they deserve it."

Fishlegs assumes she was talking about Hiccup and Astrid. "Being mad at each other?" He was inclined to agree. "Yeah, darn happy couples."

"Yeah, let them fight it out." She collapsed on the bed with a yawn, and Fishlegs felt the desire to join her. "It'll be good for them. They've made me sick all this time, it's great to see them having issues."

"It is pretty good," Fishlegs agreed, lying down next to her. "So you don't want to say anything to them."

She shrugged. "I told you, all the cuteness made me sick. Like, I feel sick just thinking about it."

"You really can't say anything nice," he said, taking her hand.

But she immediately pulled away and sat up. She looked green.

"Ruff?" Fishlegs asked nervously.

But she was already on her feet and running to the door. "You make me sick," she managed to mutter.

He couldn't think. He just watched her yank open the door and sink to her knees. This was familiar. "Ruff, are you okay?"

She didn't respond.

Fishlegs felt a twist of excitement and panic. Now that he knew what to look for…

Oh gods.

When she finally again, it was weak and breathless. "You really make me sick."

* * *

**The End!**

_Thanks to everyone who read this. We're glad so many people enjoyed the story, and thanks to all of those who wrote in with comments and critiques. Twas great._

_Backroads (the one with the account) is going to be starting by herself a sort of sequelish story-that is, a story that just so happens to take place after the events of this one, probably focusing more on Hiccup and Astrid._


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